Paul Mayersohn, a lawyer for Mr. Zlotoff, told The Hollywood Reporter, “We feel they’re infringing our rights.” Mr. Mayersohn added that he’s meeting with litigators to determine a course of action, which might include filing a copyright and/or trademark lawsuit and attempting to get an injunction against the film’s release.

Other legal experts told the  publication that the MacGruber film may be protected under  free speech and fair use laws.

The article also speculates that this case has an interesting twist, because both films are being developed simultaneously with the parody being set to release before the original giving rise to the question of whether the parody could impact the market for the original, which is one of the considerations for fair use.  Lee Zlotoff’s lawyer indicated that an unfair competition claim could also be part of their lawsuit.

This also revives hope that the MacGyver movie is still being worked on and hasn’t been forgotten as many fans had feared.

Read full article here

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Feedback to this trailer on Youtube so far has been in the resounding positive with one even saying they hope Richard Dean Anderson makes a cameo in the movie.

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With the film scheduled for release on April 23 2010, Universal Pictures now has the movie listed in the Feature Releases panel on their website with the following synopsis.

Only one American hero has earned the rank of Green Beret, Navy SEAL and Army Ranger. Just one operative has been awarded 16 purple hearts, 3 Congressional Medals of Honor and 7 presidential medals of bravery. And only one guy is man enough to still sport a mullet. In 2010, Will Forte brings Saturday Night Live’s clueless soldier of fortune to the big screen in the action comedy MacGruber.

In the 10 years since his fiancée was killed, special op MacGruber has sworn off a life of fighting crime with his bare hands. But when he learns that his country needs him to find a nuclear warhead that’s been stolen by his sworn enemy, Dieter Von Cunth (Val Kilmer), MacGruber figures he’s the only one tough enough for the job.

Assembling an elite team of experts–Lt. Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe) and Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig)–MacGruber will navigate an army of assassins to hunt down Cunth and bring him to justice. His methods may be unorthodox. His crime scenes may get messy. But if you want the world saved right, you call in MacGruber.

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Scheduled for 6th and 7th of March 2010, the convention will be in Sydney on the 6th and Melbourne on the 7th. We understand that RDA is scheduled to appear at both events.

More details including pricing information is available at the events information site

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I’ve seen several parades of The night before Christmas, but I’ve never seen one with a MacGyver theme, so I decided to give it a go.

Some parts worked well, while some, not so much.

Anyway here it is, for better or for worse.

The night before Christmas (MacGyver style)

Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the loft
Not a sound could be heard, not even a cough;
Pete Thorton lay sleeping up in the bed,
While Jack Dalton sat snoozing with cap still on head.
And MacGyver lay out on his sofa asleep,
Curled under his blanket and into a heap.

When out on the road there arose such a clatter
They all jumped up to see what was the matter.
They pulled open the curtains and turned on the light
And all three of them stared out into the night.

As they looked out the window and onto the street,
They felt a vibration from under their feet.
Then out of Macs garage, what should appear,
But a funny old sled being pulled by reindeer.

They looked at each other and then back to the sled
“It can’t be.” Said Mac “I thought he was dead!”

Then away form the sled Murdoc jumped with a bound,
Ran up the steps and into Macs lounge.
“Ah look it’s Jack Dalton, and Peter Thornton too,
And MacGyver of course, we can’t forget you.”

“To the top of the loft, to the top of the wall!
Now float away, float away, float away all.”

As leaves in the autumn are whisked off the street,
So the floor of the loft came away from their feet,
And up to the ceiling their bodies did float
As MacGyver called out “Is this some kind of joke?”

Murdoc just laughed and disappeared from view
And the three of them hung there wondering what he would do.
As Jack wondered aloud “Hey what’s that sound?”
All three of the men crashed down to the ground.

As the three of them picked themselves up of the ground
Murdoc returned with a sack, big and round.
“You see dear MacGyver. All I want to do;
Is just to sit down and spend my Christmas with you.”

As they scoffed at his words, he pulled open his sack
Dumped out it’s contents and took a step back
“I’ve brought gifts,” he said, “just to show I’m sincere.
There’s something delightful for everyone here.”

He sat on the floor, and dug into the pile,
And handed out gifts with his most charming smile:

“For your buddy Jack Dalton a plane with no rust
and for your best friend Pete Thornton, err, any use for this truss?”
“And last but not least for you MacGyver,
a brand new Swiss Army knife with blades and screw drivers.”

With a grin on his face he jumped to his feet,
Ran out through the door and down to the street.
Jumped into his slay and with a crack of a whip,
was whisked away.

But they heard him exclaim as he dwindled from sight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

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The idea of having an annual “major” online gathering was conceived in 2005 as a way of marking the 20th anniversary of MacGyver’s television premier.
“We wanted an easy way for fans from around the world to be able to gather at the same time and talk to each other on this particular date.” Says site owner Rocky. “An online chat room was really the only viable way that this could be achieved.”
Since then the so called “Cyber-meet” has become one of the main events in the MacGyver fans calendar with a lot of positive feedback from the fans each year.

This year will mark the 5th year the online celebration has been held and the fans will have a couple of burning topics to inspire their discussions. The disappointing lack of progress from the MacGyver movie announced earlier in the year and the converse hyper-activity surrounding the production of the MacGruber movie should provide an unyielding supply of discussion material.

Anyone wishing to take part is encouraged by the MacGyver Online team to visit the chat room at least a few days before the event to make sure the Java based  software is working correctly with their web browser and any problems can be sorted before the event date.

Find more information and details on MacGyver Online’s  Cyber-meet page

Some of the songs are self explanatory, using the same titles as the episodes they are written about, such as Hell Fire and Pilot, these songs provide a musical synopsis of the episodes. Other songs are a little more ambiguous, such as Jack Dalton, which takes us through The Mountain of Youth episode from Jack Dalton’s perspective.

The songs themselves are well written and arranged to produce a very professional rock sound which should appeal to a much wider audience than just MacGyver fans.

Lead guitarist, Kjetil Friestad, says the band has been together for about 2 years now and they are currently working on an album, which like their songs, is following the MacGyver theme with a working title of “The DXS years”. He says they hope to have the album completed by Christmas of this year.

You can hear a sample of their music as well as keep up with band news on their myspace and Facebook pages.

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The movie will be based on the Saturday Night Live sketch which parody’s MacGyver, the 80’s super-spy series starring Richard Dean Anderson. Few details have been made available about the movie plot other than it has been written by Will Forte, John Solomon and Jorma Taccone.

Meanwhile the producers of the announced MacGyver movie remain worryingly quiet. One has to wonder if they are waiting to see how, or if, this MacGruber movie will affect them, or juts taking their time to make sure they come up with a decent movie which pays appropriate homage to, and is worthy of the MacGyver name.

Source: Production Weekly

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Appearing on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, when asked about a MacGruber movie, Forte confirmed that he, John Solomon and Jorma Taccone, had just finished writing it. “We’re gonna make it in Albuquerque. It’s me and Kirsten Wiig and cast to be determined.” Forte said.

It won’t be the first time that Saturday Night Live has tried making movies out of their skits. Wayne’s World, Coneheads, A night at the Roxbury, It’s Pat, and Ladies man where all borne of SNL skits with mixed results. It’s hard to know where this one will go, but Forte did make an interesting comment saying “It’s maybe a little different than people are thinking.”

One has to now wonder not only how this new movie will fare, but also how this will impact on the real MacGyver movie being made. Will it encourage the real movie along or will it hurt any chance of MacGyver ever being taken seriously again?

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“It would have to be in the summer because we are back in production in the fall,” Michaels told THR when asked about the possible production timing. “We’re still in discussions” he added.

MacGruber, of course, is the multi-part MacGyver parody that SNL has aired in the Digital shorts portion of the show and in a series of television commercials the aired during the Superbowl.

Knowing Richard Dean Andersons love of skewed silliness and how he’s already enjoyed being part of the MacGruber skits on SNL, one has to wonder if he would be more inclined to want to be involved in the MacGruber movie over the real MacGyver movie and also how this might affect the efforts of Raffaella Productions to make the MacGyver movie.

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