Movie fans can go on until the end of days about big budget action flicks like Tom Cruise's Mission: Impossible franchise or Marvel's Avengers: Endgame. In the end, I think we can all agree that the greatest action hero of all time is Will Forte's MacGruber, and I'll also assume we all share the same jubilation about Forte recently revealing that he's got a MacGruber TV show in the works. Right? Right.
Understandably, not just any studio or TV network can handle the machismo-soaked magnificence that is MacGruber. Will Forte dropped a couple of tone-based teases about the in-development project, saying that there's likely no way MacGruber's episodic filthiness would ever be allowed to air on a broadcast network in the same way as Forte's post-apocalyptic comedy The Last Man on Earth did.
I definitely was very proud of what we got to do with [The Last Man on Earth], especially in a network TV setting. I felt like we did some pretty weird things, which you don’t always get a chance to do in that kind of setting. MacGruber is such a filthy situation, and I don’t know, there’s no way that this would ever be a network TV thing. This would be more likely some place that would let us say the F-word, and talk about penises for 90% of the show. That’s likely not gonna be a network thing.
It's as if Will Forte has some hidden telepathic way of communicating with all of the heads of network TV at once. Otherwise, how would he have come to that conclusion so easily? Perhaps it's the fact that the big Four networks have for decades viewed F-bombs and dong references as being on par with the black plague, but it MIGHT be Forte's telepathy.
Speaking with IndieWire about his upcoming paranormal comedy feature Extra Ordinary, Will Forte pointed out that the ideas he's conceived with his spoof-loving MacGruber team – Jorma Taccone and John Solomon – are comfortably outside the parental advisory box. Even though the character MacGruber got his start on network TV via a series of ridiculous short-form gags during Forte's stint on Saturday Night Live, the 2010 feature definitely raised the scatalogical and expletive-laden stakes. (And then had sex with their ghosts on top of their graves.)
It's not like anyone can politely just ask MacGruber to change his ways, especially not after a nine-year absence. Knowing how beloved the character is to the writing trio, as well as with audiences, one would hope that Will Forte & Co. spent much of that hiatus conceiving of countless new ways to rip a villain's dick off and make him eat it. Would it be too much to ask for Val Kilmer to somehow return for the TV show?
Assuming MacGruber can snag itself a home somewhere in the worlds of cable or streaming, there's likely nothing that will stop the show from coming to fruition. Now that no one is busy working on Fox's cancelled Last Man on Earth – R.I.P. – Forte can get back rocking another signature hairstyle while also boasting a signature 20-lb python in the pants. In his words:
Now we’re all in a place where we could do it, and we got together and thought out some ideas and pitched them out. We’re waiting to see if somebody’s going to let us do it. We’re just waiting for somebody to let us go nuts. We’re ready to go.
You hear that, execs at networks that aren't of the broadcast variety? Let Will Forte, Jorma Taccone and John Solomon go nuts! Give them a huge budget! Explode all the things!
There's obviously no clear timeline in place for MacGruber's TV development, so stay tuned to learn when it might make its way to primetime TV.
