Films based on recurring Saturday Night Live skits run the gamut in terms of quality. For every Blues Brothers, we get Blues Brothers 2000. 2010’s MacGruber exists somewhere off the spectrum altogether. Will Forte’s MacGyver spoof didn’t exactly make a huge impression at the box office, but has since gone on to become a modern comedic cult classic. Fans of the action parody have wanted to see the maniac ex-soldier return to the silver screen, and now it seems that the creative forces behind the film share their passion.
In a recent interview with EW, Forte discussed his passion for bringing MacGruber back to the big screen, as well as the sheer absurdity that the creative team would bring to the sequel’s opening scene:
We have this idea for a cold open, which we just don’t know if we have the balls to do. And we’ve done some crazy stuff. This is just like, ‘Do we really want to do this? Is this how we want to start out the movie?’ It’s pretty gnarly. But we might just have to do it.
By contrast, the opening scene of MacGruber played things fairly straight before the audience got introduced to the titular hero – skewering just about every 1980’s action trope in the process. Over the course of the film, everything slowly devolves into a farce of over the top violence and sexual gratuity. Those who have seen the original film know that Forte has no qualms with crazy. This is a character that likens throat ripping to bowling, commits his enemy’s license plates to memory -- KFBR392, KFBR392, KFBR392 -- and is generally so morally corrupt that the villain’s motives almost seem completely justified. Basically, for Forte to hesitate about his idea for the sequel’s opening scene – even for a moment – means that it must be gold.
For the time being, Forte has kept incredibly busy with his Emmy nominated tenure on Fox’s The Last Man on Earth. His commitment to the series has prevented him from diving headlong into the creative process for a MacGruber sequel. An outline for the film is nearing completion, and Forte states that he will return to the process of finishing the outline – as well as a subsequent script – sometime in February when his commitments to the show become less rigorous.
Are you excited about the prospect of MacGruber 2? What could Forte possibly bring to the opening scene to make it so crazy? Until he dons the mullet and vest again, you can check out Will Forte on The Last Man on Earth every Sunday on Fox.
