Quick, readers! Hand us that screwdriver! Toss us that roll of sellotape! Now, throw over that CD of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits! There… put them all together, and what have you got? A MacGyver movie!
Yes, New Line and Dino De Laurentiis’ daughter, Raffaella, are teaming up to bring the beloved TV action hero to the big screen. Which could mean that mullets are about to return, in a major way.
In case you weren’t aware, MacGyver, played by Richard Dean Anderson, was a one-man A-Team, a secret agent who would frequently get captured while on dangerous assignments, only to frequently save himself by using his resourcefulness and engineering know-how to fashion machines and fantastic devices out of rag-tag components.
Even though the show was cancelled in 1992, MacGyver became something of a cultural phenomenon, and a watchword for resourcefulness. Recently, of course, Will Forte’s wonderful recurring sketch on Saturday Night Live – the heroic yet inept MacGruber, who ends every episode getting blown sky-high – helped revive love for MacGyver. So much so, in fact, that Anderson cameoed on the sketch last week.
Did MacGruber have anything to do with the announcement of the movie? Maybe not, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt. But don’t be alarmed – New Line isn’t looking to make the big-screen MacGyver a comedy.
They will, though, be looking for a writer who can tread the fine line between knowing humour and straight-faced action. As long as they can find a cameo role for Anderson (and, hell, one for Forte too), we’ll be happy.