Peter Sarsgaard Playing THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN Villain, Jason Momoa Reportedly Out

The Magnificent Seven remake just gained a villain, but lost a badass. Variety reports that Peter Sarsgaard has signed on to play the main bad guy in the western, while Deadline says that Jason Momoa has dropped out of a small role as one of the villain's henchmen.

The film, which stars Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, and Vincent D'Onofrio, is a remake of the classic 1960 film, which itself was a riff on Akira Kurosowa's The Seven Samurai. It follows a group of disparate mercenaries who are hired to protect a small town from a vicious robber baron. Sarsgaard has played bad guys before in films like Lovelace and Green Lantern, so we'll see if he can be menacing in the saddle this time around. And it's a true shame to see Momoa bail from this project, but if the report is true that he left because he felt like his character didn't have enough to do, it's hard to blame him for walking. I'd rather see him try to escape the shadow of his Game of Thrones performance by appearing in something he's passionate about, like he's doing on his Sundance Channel series The Red Road.

Haley Bennett, Byung-hun Lee, Luke Grimes, and Matt Bomer are also a part of the cast, and Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer) is directing. The Magnificent Seven will ride into theaters in January of 2017.