When it was just a recurring SNL sketch, MacGruber — the Will Forte-led parody of ‘80s gadget-heavy action show MacGyver — always ended with its mulletted hero killing himself and everyone around him, only to somehow come back another day. So it was fitting, sort of, that though the big screen version, from 2010, died at the box office, it lived on anyway. First it achieved cult status on home video. Then it was revealed it was being revived as a Peacock show. Now it’s expanded its already stellar cast.
Variety reports that the revival, which already brought back Forte, Kristen Wiig, and Ryan Phillippe — the latter who did some fine straight man work in the film — has roped in three more big names. They are: Sam Elliott, Laurence Fishburne, and Mickey Rourke.
Elliott, the legend who received a belated Oscar nomination a few years back for playing Bradley Cooper’s quite older brother in A Star is Born, will be on hand as MacGruber’s estranged father, to whom he comes to for advice in his latest mission. Fishburne will play a general who’s married to our hero’s ex-wife and occasional team partner, Wiig’s Vicky St. Elmo.
As for Rourke, he’ll play Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth, aka the series’ main baddie. (Val Kilmer, another ‘80s heartthrob, performed the same service in the movie.) The actor hasn’t been seen a whole lot in the last handful of years, despite having earned a well-deserved comeback in 2008 with his Oscar-nominated turn in The Wrestler. This could be another chance for acclaim for someone who has been hailed as one of his generation’s finest actors — and who, pre-Wrestler, was one of the most frequent and welcome character actors in the business.
(Via Variety)
