Who could have foreseen MacGyver becoming the new hot property for adaptation? Admittedly, mining nostalgia for movies and TV is hardly new, but in the last few years there seems to have been a small frenzy about Mac and his adventures. With the TV reboot still developing, Lionsgate is planning a new stab at turning the show about the science whizz/engineering genius government agent into a movie.
That's the classic show, by the way – the telly version will stay a separate entity (for now), rebooting the concept. Quite what the new film take will be is still unknown: Lionsgate executives announced it at a financial analyst conference call, which is hardly the best place to glean plot information.
What we do know is that Fast & Furious producer Neal Moritz and original MacGyver creator are overseeing the new movie for Lionsgate that will, one assumes, either find someone to play the original Mac (forever associated with Richard Dean Anderson) or find an updated, mullet-less alternative.
As for the TV show, that's still bubbling away under the aegis of James Wan, taking its cue from the cult favourite original, and updating with a younger MacGyver when he’s first recruited by a clandestine organization looking to make use of his problem-solving smarts. Wan is still attached, and will likely direct the pilot,to be written by Paul Downs Colaizzo.