Eight-part drama based on the 1960s film is being written by Tim Kring 

Amazon-owned streamer MGM+ has greenlit a series based on iconic Western, The Magnificent Seven.

The eight-part show will be based on the MGM film and has been written by Tim Kring (Heroes, Touch), who is also executive producing alongside Donald De Line (Billy the Kid).

Lawrence Mirisch and Bruce Kaufman also serve as executive producers, with MGM+ Studios and MGM Television Studios aiming to start filmiung in June next year.

The series will be available on MGM+ in the US, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Chile.

The show will be set in the tumultuous 1880s American frontier and tracks what happens after a peaceful Quaker village is massacred by mercenaries working for a greedy and ruthless land baron.

Seven gifted but flawed mercenaries are hired by the community to protect them from the land baron’s hired guns, but the team are forced to grapple with whether the use of violence is acceptable to defend a people whose faith is based on non-violence.

Michael Wright, head of MGM+, said the show would “honour the legacy of the original film” and “reassert its timeless themes of the power of unity against oppression and flawed heroes finding redemption by helping those who can’t help themselves.”

The original 1960 film The Magnificent Seven, produced by The Mirisch Company and released by United Artists (now part of MGM), is one of the best known Westerns of all time.

Three spin-offs were released, while the IP was turned into a series in 1998, prior to the original film being remade in 2016.

This article was originally published on www.broadcastnow.co.uk.