Mar 16 2009 'MacGyver' Film Being Made From Typically Simplistic Household Items MacGyver Joke
The nearly year-old rumor is true: MacGyver is only a MacGyver joke and an A-list writer away from a global franchise!
New Line is using twine, bubble gum and a pencil to throw "MacGyver" into development as a feature film."MacGyver" was a science-oriented adventure series that ran from 1985-92 on ABC. Richard Dean Anderson, later of "Stargate: Atlantis" and "SG-1" fame, starred as an incredibly resourceful secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation who frequently would escape from dangerous situations with ingenious and lightning-quick engineering trickery.
No writer is attached, but the studio hopes to find a script that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.
"We think we're a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise," said New Line's Richard Brener, who will oversee with Sam Brown and Walter Hamada.
What I hate most is how this New Line guy essentially recognizes that MacGyver is a pop culture punchline with his chewing gum line, but then immediately follows it up with, "still though, we'll make a serious, successful franchise of films out of that joke, and does anyone know if Airwolf rights are still available?" Someone stop all of this.
May 5 2008 'MacGyver' Coming to Theaters, and Not as an Intentional Comedy?
This weekend, MacGyver creator Lee David Zlotoff attended Maiker Faire, presumably to be honored for creating the character to have made the most ridiculous shit by hand. But it was Zlotoff's news of an improved method of diffusing a bomb with an office supply that would prove most surprising; it was the mention that a big-budget MacGyver movie is in the planning stages. Since MacGyver has essentially been a Chuck Norris-level joke since his inception, I would normally think this means a two-hour joke about how Will Ferrell-in-a-mullet screams about needing a paperclip. But here's the kicker: Zlotoff, the one man who may still somehow take the character seriously, has the movie rights and complete creative control. Trying to make MacGyver funny would surely lead to predictably miserable results, but with the creator in control, this could be something. Something ridiculous and only ironically enjoyable, but something nonetheless.
MacGyver Blockbuster Film Coming! [Gizmodo]
