He was the famous TV secret agent who refused to carry a gun. He had an incredible knowledge of science to the point where he could gather anything around him and turn it into an invention.
His knack for getting out of tight situations would make 007 envious. He had a great mullet, even by eighties standards. He also became a long running joke on The Simpsons as Aunt Patty and Selma’s favorite show.
We’re talking about MacGyver, and he may be returning soon with the help of the creator of Saw. MacGyver, starring Richard Dean Anderson in the title role, ran on TV from 1985 to 1992. Although it’s been twenty years since he last fixed a car radiator with egg whites or made a solar powered laser beam, you know Hollywood will continue to plunder old movies and TV shows for a long time to come, especially if they have the kind of name recognition as MacGyver.
So as The Hollywood Reporter tells us, James Wan, who created the Saw franchise, is up to direct the big screen version of MacGyver, which is currently set up at New Line Cinema.
The Reporter also feels that because Wan has done wonders with small budgets, New Line could be looking at a smaller budget movie, and why not? MacGyver didn’t need a ton of high tech gear, and you don’t need a huge Hollywood budget to recreate a solar powered laser. (Actually, more Hollywood movies could learn from MacGyver’s resourcefulness.)
Wan recently had a big horror hit with Insidious, and he’s got another horror film coming that’s generating good buzz, The Conjuring, so it would be interesting to see him take on MacGyver. According to Cinema Blend, a MacGyver movie has been in development in 2009, and it currently has a script from Brian and Mark Gunn, who also wrote the 3D Journey to the Center of the Earth movie, The Mysterious Island.
Cinema Blend is hopeful Richard Dean Anderson will at least make a cameo in the film, and that would definitely be cool, but I’m also hopeful that by the time a MacGyver movie is in theaters the Simpsons will still be on the air, and the MacGyver movie will worked into an episode’s plot. This was brilliantly done in the “Black Widower”episode where Sideshow Bob married Aunt Selma, and the show actually ends up saving her life.
