A movie version of The A-Team has been in development hell so long at this stage that it's had time to tour all seven circles, chat up all the female demons and find out for sure whether Jimmy Hoffa's dead. But good news: it has finally gotten hold of a welding torch and fashioned a crude armoured escape truck from some chains and pitchforks, and is headed back to our screens with Joe Carnahan directing and Tony and Ridley Scott producing.
The film was last in development with John Singleton set to direct, and after he dropped out screenwriter Skip Woods wrote a draft of the script. The new film will keep the origin story we all know and love, only substituting the Gulf War for Vietnam. Let's refresh our memory, shall we?
"In 1972 a crack commando unit was send to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem - If no one else can help - and if you can find them - maybe you can hire the A-Team."
Carnahan promises to make a film that stays true to the show without "cheesing it up".
"You can ... make a film that reflects on the real world without losing the great sense of fun and the velocity of action in a classic summer popcorn film," he told Variety.
Carnahan and actor-turned-screenwriter Brian Bloom are polishing the Skip Woods (GI Joe) script at the moment, and Carnahan's put his Killing Pablo Escobar project on indefinite hold to put this first in his schedule, intending to start production this June for a June 11, 2010 release.
Producer Ridley Scott promises that this will be a "fast-paced, exciting franchise" and clearly sees this as just the first of many A-films. Frankly at this point we'd settle for one, so let's hope that this finally gets off the ground.