Dino de Laurentiis (who is 89) and his daughter Raffaela are producing a movie version of MacGyver, the popular 80s TV series and basis for those MacGruber sketches which really aren’t as funny as everyone thinks.

The science-oriented adventure series 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. [THR]

One A-list writer told Brener, “I’m here to chew gum, write an award-winning script and stab you in the eye with a paper clip for being so f’ing obvious.  I have the gum and the script, I just like to multitask.”  But really, the only way I’d care about this is if they hired Jason Statham, changed the title to “MacGoivva”, and instead of using his brain to solve problems, he punches women in the face.