The rights of the seven samurai took a complicated road from Akira Kurosawa to the magnificent seven

Initially, the US remake rights to "Seven Samurai" belonged to a screenwriter named Lou Morheim who wrote the scripts for movies like "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and TV shows like "The Outer Limits" , "The Big Valley," and "Rawhide." He would also end up serving as an executive producer on the project. It was Morheim who pitched the Western idea of ​​"Seven Samurai" to actor Anthony Quinn as a potential vehicle. was so enamored with the idea that, much like the villagers in the movie itself, he began scouring Hollywood looking for other team members to join him in. Quinn pitched the idea of ​​Morheim to Yul Brynner, a sought-after commodity after the hits of "The King and I" and "The Ten Commandments," both from 1956.

Brynner also loved the idea and kind of snatched it away from Quinn, deciding to make the movie on his own terms. Brynner took the lead role and began developing a script with producer Walter Mirisch. It was during this phase of production that the original samurai were transformed into untrustworthy ex-gunfighters and the film would be shot in widescreen technicolor on a budget of $2 million (a modest $20 million in 2022 dollars). Cinemascope had only been introduced to the public with "The Robe" in 1953, so the format was still a novelty.

Lovell, in an interview on the Cinemadope website, recounts how Mirisch sold a Western "Seven Samurai" to United Artists. Mirisch, the story goes, hosted a screening of Kurosawa's film on the studio grounds with other UA executives and producers. Mirisch recalls that everyone in the room had a great experience translating the classic into Western terms in real time. It was a presentation meeting through "Mystery Science Theater 3000".