According to sources, Will Smith is in negotiations to both produce and star in a remake of the 1969 Sam Peckinpah classic western, The Wild Bunch, which followed a group of aging outlaws setting out for one last big score in 1913 as the ways of the old west are dying and the new ways are settling in.

Instead of using this premise, it’s said that Smith’s version—which will be through his Overbrook Entertainment along with Jerry Weintraub, who worked with him to produce the Karate Kid remake—would be modern and follow a disgraced DEA agent who assembles a team to go after a Mexican drug lord and his fortune.

Warner Brothers and Weintraub have been trying to reboot The Wild Bunch for years now, with The Fast and the Furious and Training Day writer David Ayer first hired to pen a screenplay, and, more recently, the late Tony Scott was developing the project along with L.A. Confidential and Mystic River writer Brian Helgeland.

The next step will be to find a new writer for the reboot, and to start looking at who might be interested in joining Smith on what’s sure to be a massive cast. The original movie starred starred William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sanchez, and Ben Johnson.

Another classic western, The Magnificent Seven, also has a remake being developed, with Tom Cruise once said to be attached to star and names like Morgan Freeman, Kevin Costner, and Matt Damon rumored as possible co-stars at one point.

What do you think about Will Smith in a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch?

[Source: The Wrap]