Hollywood's latest choice for a Saturday Night Live film remake is both the strangest and most interesting choice they could make, short of a big screen "Weekend Update" action epic or a "Toonces the Cat" feature-length Pixar film. Variety reports that Lorne Michaels and company are creating a big-screen remake of the show's popular "MacGruber" sketches. Cast member Will Forte will take on the title role and pen the movie's script along with SNL writers John Solomon and Jorma Taccone, the latter of whom is better known as one-third of the musical comedy group The Lonely Island.
Kristen Wiig will also star as MacGruber's object grabbing sidekick Vicki. Ryan Phillipe and Val Kilmer have been attached to the project, but their roles haven't been nailed down yet.
SNL character movie remakes can carry the potential for greatness (i.e. The Blues Brothers, Wayne's World and Coneheads) or utter disaster (i.e. every SNL movie since It's Pat: The Movie).
A MacGruber movie, however, is the first SNL film that carries a strange aura of curiosity and excitement. The sketch's premise is fairly short and rarely reaches longer than a couple of minutes, since the joke comes from MacGruber's inability to stop every ticking time bomb that he comes into contact with.
Devising the method in which Forte and company can stretch out that character to make a 90-plus minute film, without completely abandoning the premise, seems almost as impossible a task as using a paper clip, some fishing line and a chewed wad of gum to prevent a nuclear device from detonating. If anyone can do it, however, Forte can. He's become one of SNL's most exciting comedy minds and most deserving of a chance to prove his comedy chops on the big screen.
Plus, such a movie demands, nay, requires a supporting or cameo role for Richard Dean Anderson, aka TV's MacGuyver. Imagine if the original Mac became the movie's main villain! It would be the greatest TV showdown since Glenn Beck lost not one, but two rounds to his tear ducts.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-09-2009 @ 11:36AM
MJL said...
This sketch isn't even good enough to return next season, let alone be made into a film.
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7-09-2009 @ 12:28PM
mosbutnotall said...
The only joke in MacGruber is that he never defuses the bomb in time, other than that the character is just MacGyver - that's all there is to the character.
If you can't do the joke - which will be hard to do more than a couple of times I suppose then you're just making a watered down MacGyver movie, if you make it more than that then it's not MacGruber. Either way it seems pointless. And it wasn't even that funny to start with!
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7-09-2009 @ 12:29PM
Dave said...
I'm sorry but these sketches made me laugh out loud every time they were on. And the Pepsuber ones were great too. I'd rent this on DVD in a heartbeat, but it's not movie-ticket-price worthy.
Pepsi pepsi pepsi pepsi pepsi pepsi pepsi!
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7-09-2009 @ 12:51PM
Chrysee said...
These sketches always make me laugh, but I think it would be impossible to make a feature-length movie and have it be even remotely similar.
Best idea? Run a bunch of totally epic-looking trailers and hype it like crazy, but then have the actual movie just be 15 normal-length MacGruber sketches back to back to back.
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7-09-2009 @ 1:02PM
Alicia R. said...
Why am I oddly excited about this train wreck?
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7-09-2009 @ 1:58PM
Scott said...
If they all die at the end when the bomb goes off, how do you do this more than once in a movie? On a sketch comedy show, you cut to commercial, run a few more unfunny bits, maybe have a singer go on, and then you can go back and do another one. What do you do in a feature movie? What possible logic do you use to explain the characters being alive again?
This is far worse than just taking an unfunny sketch and trying to build a movie around it. At least there could logically keep being more people who couldn't tell what sex Pat was, or who were confused by the Coneheads. But leads who come back to life every time the one and only joke of the bit is used?
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7-09-2009 @ 2:35PM
Drex said...
In Lorne we trust..
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7-09-2009 @ 2:59PM
Wii60 said...
It's why we still hold out hope for Jimmy Fallon.
Lorne Micheal's batshit wacko ideas often pan out in the best possible way.
7-09-2009 @ 6:14PM
Jimmy said...
This has already been reported on TV Squad.
It is still a bad idea.
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7-10-2009 @ 12:58AM
CJ said...
It's a b-a-a-a-a-a-d idea! I loved the skits at first, but they got boring after awhile. RDA's appearance on SNL and in the Pepsuber commercials got me watching again, but to make a full blown movie? I just can't see it...
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7-10-2009 @ 8:37AM
mosbutnotall said...
No matter which way you look at it, this character is one note, there is one gag that they just setup in a variety of different ways. If they somehow expand on the character then all credit to them, but if they could you would think there would have been some signs of it in at least one of the sketches.
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