Let’s face it, you could count the number of times that a character from the long-running sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live has been successfully translated to the big screen on one hand. As opposed to the number of times that the translation has failed, for which which you would need a couple of more hands for counting. Since different writers have been involved with almost every attempt, it may be that there is something inherently insurmountable with taking a comedy concept that can sustain a three to five minute sketch and asking it to hold up a feature-length film.
Will Forte is the next to step up to the plate, bringing his spoof of the 80s action series MacGuyver, MacGruber, to the big screen. In the past couple of days, two trailers for the film have been released – one green band and a racier red band – and honestly, they’re not exciting much. Joining Forte in the movie are SNL castmates Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph while show writers John Solomon and Jorma Taccone are collaborating on the script with Forte. That’s some good, solid talent, so let’s hope that this is just a case of some badly assembled trailers. We’ll find out when the film hits theaters on April 23, 2010.
I saw these around the net the other day. I didn’t actually think that there was seriously going to be a movie about this character. There have been a lot of one-note SNL characterto get spin-off films, but none as one-note as this one.