Will Forte has confirmed that the MacGruber movie is going ahead.

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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According to reports coming from The Hollywood Reporter, Lorne Michaels has indicated that Saturday Night Live might be toying with the idea of making a MacGruber movie.

“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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Youtube have launched their new TV shows channel, with a host of new and old TV shows, including MacGyver

It appears that like other free-view sites, there is the occasional episode missing from the seasons play lists, hopefully in time these missing episodes will be made available.

The word is that YouTube has signed agreements to distribute content from Sony, Lions Gate, CBS, MGM, and more, so it looks like the selection of shows will keep growing.

As with other free-to-view sites, these videos are only available to watch in the US.

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MacGyver Knife album cover

Cape Town’s up-and-coming indie rock band may have a familiar feel for fans of the MacGyver show. Not only is the band called MacGyver Knife, but their title has MacGyver’s Swiss Army Knife forming the letter K in their name.

Band frontman Mishal Pandie says they grew up watching MacGyver on TV and within their community the Swiss Army Knives are more commonly know as MacGyver knives. He says the bands name came from a combination of the knives nick-name and the fact that they regularly had to fix up their battered drum kit “MacGyver style”.

The bands music also has a familiar feel to it with such influences listed on their myspace page as radiohead, oasis, smashing pumpkins, led zeppelin, the who, the Beatles, the killers, plus many others.

You can see their first video here

And their myspace and facebook pages here.

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Warm Up the Snake by John Rich

John Rich has directed and produced some of the most well-known shows in television history, including The Dick Van Dyke Show, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Barney Miller, The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, and of course, MacGyver. Now he has released a book chronicling his legendary career.

His book Warm up the snake, offers a fascinating tell-all insight into the world behind the scenes of TV shows. John’s career has spanned half a century, not only as an accomplished director, but also as an innovator who is responsible for many of the “tricks of the trade” we now take for granted.

As well as having some interesting insights into the MacGyver show, John’s book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in the workings of the television industry.

Warm up the snake can be purchased from the MacGyver Online Store or directly from amazon.com

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The houseboat as it is today.

The owners of the houseboat originally used to film the MacGyver TV show say they have contacted Raffaella Productions, the company producing the new MacGyver movie, with an offer to use their houseboat once again as MacGyver’s home in the upcoming movie.

“We read about it in the paper and phoned California right away.” They said of hearing the news of the upcoming movie.

The plan to make the MacGyver movie was announced earlier this week by Raffaella Productions in conjunction with New Line Cinema. There’s currently no script or writers associated with the movie, so whether they will need the houseboat or not is unknown at this time, but the offer will be there if they do.

The houseboat was used as MacGyver’s home during the 4 years (season 3-6) the show was filmed in Vancouver Canada, and is still one of the more associated icons of the show. The boat was moored in the Bute Marina at Coal Harbour and subsequently sold and moved as redevelopment of the waterfront area began and production of the show moved back to Los Angeles. Since those days the house has undergone extensive internal renovations and an new paint job externally.

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In November of last year Richard Dean Anderson made a guest appearance to the Quench the Fire Charity run/walk as part of his Purple Heart project for the Pain Center.

As part of an incentive idea, the Quench the fire charity trust had decided to give away 2 tickets to Disneyland in LA to “anyone surpassing the $1,000 mark in fund raising”.
As it turned out the Purple Heart project’s fund raising was much more successful than anyone had hoped and went well beyond the $1,000 mark.

The project, however, decided that no-single person could accept the tickets as they where all equally responsible for the success.  So as a result of that, they have decided to pass the tickets onto the Challenges Boys and Girls Club in LA in the hope that they could put the tickets to good use and help put a smile on a child’s face.

You will recall that the Challengers club featured in several episodes of MacGyver as his chosen place of volunteer work and with RDA being involved in the Purple Heart project, one can only imagine that his MacGyver connection  may have helped influence the pointing of these tickets in the Challengers club’s worthy direction.

Read the email from the Purple Heart project here.

Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver

The announcement of plans for a MacGyver movie has spread around the world like wild fire. Every news blog on the internet seems to have grabbed this news and is running with it. It’s even beginning to appear on TV news.

While many of the first reports where just copies of the original news from The Hollywood Reporter, those who are picking it up a little later have gotten over the initial excitement of the news and are now beginning to take a little more objective approach to the news and starting to analyze it further.

We’re now beginning to see some thoughtful response and questions about this news. Aside from the obvious questions about casting, there’s also some pondering being done over New Line Cinema’s “We think we’re a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise.” comment. As one report pointed out, this hardly inspires confidence.

Non-the-less this doesn’t take away from the impact the news seems to have had around the world. Who would have thought that a show from the 80’s which regularly got kicked around by Monday night football would make such a big impact with a movie announcement some 17 years after it ended.

Certainly the popularity of the MacGruber skits on Saturday Night Live and the recent guest appearance of MacGyver himself, Richard Dean Anderson, in these skits has had a bearing on the decision to run with this movie.

It shows that RDA is still willing and happy to be associated with the character, and more importantly that the character is still hugely popular and widely remembered by the general public. Piece this together with recent polls which show MacGyver as the #1 person most Americans would want beside them in a disaster and the #1 TV tough guy, and we have what would seem to be a perfect climate for a movie.

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If you’ve seen any recent news coverage about this movie announcement post a comment below and let us know.

Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver

According to a news report from The Hollywood Reporter, the 80’s icon, MacGyver is set to be made into a feature film.

Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of Dino De Laurentiis, is producing the film hrough her Raffaella Prods. company along with Martha De Laurentiis and series creator Lee Zlotoff and Dino De Laurentiis as exec producer and will be released through New Line Cinema.

No writer is attached, but the studio hopes to find a script that can acknowledge how the concept has staked a place into pop culture yet still makes for a serious and fun adventure movie.

“We think we’re a stick of chewing gum, a paper clip and an A-list writer away from a global franchise,” said New Line’s Richard Brener, who will oversee with Sam Brown and Walter Hamada.

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Richard Dean Anderson reprised his role of MacGyver in Saturday Night Live’s MacGruber for a second run of skits last night (March 7th)

Previously he made a guest appearance in the PepSuber commercials which eventually aired during the Super Bowl.

This time however there is no Pepsi involved, but we do find out what the relationship between MacGyver and MacGruber really is. You can watch these skits in our media center by clicking the links below

MacGruber (part 4)

MacGruber (part 5)

MacGruber (part 6)

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