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Author: Clint Morris Date: Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 Time: 12:16 am



Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe are circling “MacGruber”, Paramount and Relativity Media’s big-screen take on the SNL skit. Will Forte and Kristen Wiig will reprise their roles for the film.

Jorma Taccone, who created the character and directed most of the skits, is helming; "SNL" producer and creator Lorne Michaels is producing.

The "MacGruber" sketches starred Forte as MacGyver's son with Wiig as an assistant who always find themselves, along with that week's guest star, in a control room with a ticking bomb about to go off. MacGruber gets sidelined by personal issues, and the bomb goes off.

The Forte/Taccone/John Solomon-penned script takes the story in a completely different direction from the skits yet remains strangely familiar: The legendary, much decorated MacGruber is pulled out of retirement as a monk in Ecuador by a colonel, who needs him once more to fight on behalf of his country. This time the mission involves going up against the evil Cunth, who has a nuclear warhead; the mission is personal because Cunth killed MacGruber's bride.

Kilmer would play the evil Cunth, Phillippe would be Piper, an Army officer forced to pair up with a reluctant MacGruber.

The "MacGruber" movie is fast-tracked and at this stage looks like it could make it to the screen before a "MacGyver" movie, which is in development at New Line.