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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Hey, you guys remember Manimal? F*ckin’ classic, am I right? I mean who could forget Manimal? I remembered the sh*t out of Manimal five minutes go when I Googled it.

Sony Pictures Animation has picked up the movie rights to Manimal, a short-lived 1983 NBC series, and is developing the project as a live action/CG hybrid film.

By “live action/CG hybrid film,” do you mean the Yogi Bear formula? GO ON.

Manimal followed Dr. Jonathan Chase, a wealthy doctor with a mysterious past, who morphed into animals in order to help the police fight crime.

Wait, isn’t this Ali G’s pitch for “Hot Dog Cop?”

The show, which starred Brit Simon MacCorkindale and Melody Anderson (who played Dale Arden in the 1980 movie Flash Gordon), was slaughtered by critics and trounced when it aired in 1983 opposite Dallas, then a ratings juggernaut. It was canceled after just eight episodes.

But Manimal was campy — Chase turned into a black panther in every episode and uttered lines like “I was a real pussycat” — and developed a cult following even as it became a punchline. It aired during a pre-Must See TV time at NBC when the network was experimenting with such high-concept fare as Knight Rider and The A-Team to see what would stick. [THR]

Throwing high-concept fare like Knight Rider and A-Team just to see what would stick, ha, the eighties, what a stupid time, right? Good thing we learned from those mistakes. Anyway, so Manimal is basically a dumb, obscure TV show that only nerds remember, and only remembered when they want to be cute and ironic. Well hey, it worked for Dark Shadows, right? I just hope they make it super earnest, with Johnny Depp starring and Andy Serkis imbuing all the CG animals with his thespianic emoting.

Picture sort of related

This story is a little old now, so there’s a chance you might have heard, but it’s my duty to report anyway, if only to illustrate why we can’t have nice things. Fox 2000 has a acquired the rights to Mr. Ed, your grandpa’s sixth-favorite telemavision show, with plans to turn it into a family film. I will bet a thousand dollars the horse dances to hip hop at some point.

Mr. Ed, a television sitcom from Filmways, aired on CBS from Oct. 1, 1961 to Feb. 6, 1966. As in the original show, Fox 2000 will use a real horse. The studio will use CGI to animate the horse’s mouth. David Friendly, who has produced a number of movies for Fox, including Little Miss Sunshine for Fox Searchlight, brought the project to Fox 2000. Friendly and Jim Mahoney, a longtime manager and television producer, have spent several years securing the rights to Mr. Ed from two different estates. [THR]

Several years of time well spent, I’m sure. I say they just save time and combine this with War Horse. They could just go in and add CGI lips and do the voiceovers in post. “Neeeigh, I dunno, Mr. Spielberg, this romance seems maudlin and derivative, neeeeigh, call my agent.”

But if not, I hear Gary Busey has been campaigning hard for the lead role, showing up unannounced to pitch meetings and hammering nails into the bottoms of his feet.

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