MacGyver‘s never been far from pop cultural consciousness, and the creator even tried to sue the producers of MacGruber a few years back. That apparently didn’t work out for him, but incredibly, New Line is still moving forward with an actual MacGyver movie. The earnest version usually comes out after the parody, right? That’s how that works?

New Line is cobbling together its “MacGyver” movie, entering talks with James Wan [Saw, Insidious] after the director’s supernatural horror pic “The Conjuring” pleased studio brass.

Obviously, “the studio loved it!” before a real audience has even seen it is always an ironclad guarantor of success.

The 1980s TV series starring Richard Dean Anderson followed Angus MacGyver, an agent of the fictional Phoenix Foundation. MacGyver never carried a gun, using his wits and whatever was lying around to fight criminals.

- “Hey, so we’ve got this movie about a hero who’s super smart and nice and refuses to use a gun. Who should we get to direct it?”
- “I’ve got just the guy! He directed this awesome tortune porn movie about a serial killer who chokes chicks to death their with her own pussy lips!” (I’ve never seen Saw, I assume that’s what it’s about).

No plot details have emerged for the script that Jason Richman drafted and was most recently worked over by Brian and Mark Gunn. Whether Anderson would be involved is not known.
The show was a hit for ABC, running for seven years, spawning two telepics and a 2003 spinoff, “Young MacGyver,” that never got picked up. [Variety]

“Young MacGyver.” Oh yeah, that’s online (embedded below). I know what I’ll be doing on my lunch hour today.

The levels of success for a television series used to be 1. Pilot. 2. Pick up. 3. Syndication. Now it goes 1. Pilot. 2. Pick up. 3. Syndication. 4. Semi-ironic movie adaptation. In fact, Stephen J. Cannell has a second yacht financed solely with irony money.

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MacGruber opens today, and despite it being based on a sketch that wasn’t that funny to begin with, they got one of The Lonely Island guys to direct, and made it a hard-R comedy, and now it seems like it might actually be funny (emphasis on might, I haven’t seen it yet).  Anyway, now seems like the perfect time for a movie about the real MacGyver, right?  (*fart sound*)

Make me a dismissive wank out of Bisquik and a coat hanger, THR.

New Line, which is developing the “MacGyver” movie, has tapped Jason Richman to pen the script. If hiring Richman is any indication, New Line plans to make “MacGyver” straight-faced but still keep it fun. The WME-repped writer did uncredited work on “Black Hawk Down” and “Rush Hour 3,” wrote the Chris Rock-Anthony Hopkins action comedy “Bad Company” and worked on a draft of “Beverly Hills Cop 4.”

MacGyver ran from 1985-1992, and Richard Dean Anderson is actually only 60, which is still young enough to be called “Baby Face” on The Expendables set.  Even so, I’m sure they’ll try to make it hip and urban and web 2.0 and cast a new lead, who instead of being a scientist, will probably be a BASE-jumping MMA fighter.  They should just cast Channing Tatum.  “Yo girl, that p*ssy is da bomb, and McGizzy be knowin bombs or whatever. All ya boy need is some fat beats an Alizé an’ I’mma get up in there, ya heard?  Hahaha, ah’m just playin’ witchoo, ya dumb beeyotch, I’m Audi five.  Holla back onna nigga blue toof.”

     Actual Size

Via MTV:

DJ Nu-Mark confirmed that he’ll be joining the cast of the “MacGruber” movie. On Twitter. [...] In his own words:

“@djnumark: Ahh, gonna be in my first movie! Playin a DJ in the new Mac Gruber movie (from SNL)..lol. Val Kilmer is gonna take my mic from me..lol”

So there you have it. Val Kilmer: actor, outdoorsman . . . mic thief.

In fairness to Val, he may have thought the mic was an ice cream cone. (Another fat joke?  Really?  Hell yes you cheeky scofflaws.) And just to clear the air here: I’d still do him. And tweet about it.

By the way, there’s a MacGyver video inside that you should check out.  Did MacGyver own any airbrushed vans perchance?

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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.