Tradecraft: Now There's a MacGyver Movie in the Works, Too

CBS just this week handed out a pilot order to Furious 7 director James Wan's TV reboot of the 1980s network staple MacGyver first announced last fall. And now, hot on the heels of that announcement, comes news from Deadline that Wan's Furious 7 producer Neal Moritz will team with the creator of the original series, Lee David Zlotoff, for a MacGyver movie at Lionsgate. The two projects are unrelated, though interestingly Wan's TV project began its life as a Young MacGyver feature set in the protagonist's college days. (A feature has been in the works in various iterations at various studios for years if not decades.) The TV show, which is produced by Henry Winkler, who executive produced the 1985-92 ABC series starring Richard Dean Anderson, will follow a twenty-something MacGyver through his early years with the clandestine spy agency DSX (Department of External Services). Little is known about the newly announced film version, including whether the hero will be an active government agent with DSX, a private contractor with The Phoenix Foundation, or something else.

So, to recap, yes, there are now two separate remakes of the Eighties series about the guy who always saved the world with a pipe cleaner and shaving cream in the works, if you can believe it, each one coincidentally involving a different veteran of the Fast and Furious franchise teamed with a member of the production team behind the original series.

Still no word on a follow-up to the highly amusing 2010 parody movie MacGruber (spun off from a long-running Saturday Night Live sketch spoofing the original MacGyver), but star Will Forte (The Last Man On Earth) has said many times that it remains a priority for him.