In the tradition of “It’s Pat,” “Stuart Saves His Family” and “Superstar,” yet another marginal SNL sketch is getting ready for the big screen treatment. Those twenty second “MacGruber” skits, which we admit are hilarious late on a Saturday night after a few drinks, are being turned into a feature length film. It remains to be seen if the concept, fleshed out in a script by Will Forte and SNL writers John Solomon and Jorma Taccone (who will also be making his directorial debut) will still be funny when it’s ninety minutes long on a Sunday afternoon.
But it seems like they have taken a step in the right direction. In an interview with NY Mag, Bill Hader has revealed that the script is a hard-R comedy that is “awesome,” “hilarious” and “fucking ugly.” Sounds cool. If the studio lets them have their way, this will be the first restricted SNL sketch film since “The Blues Brothers” and possibly the first one that hasn’t sucked since “Wayne’s World 2.”
“MacGruber” is currently filming and has been given a release date of April 16, 2010. Bill Hader had a busy summer with roles in “Adventureland”, “Year One” and “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.” He also recently finished writing a slasher film called “House Of Joel” which has been set up by Judd Apatow at Universal, but as of yet, has not been greenlit. He also admits that he and Michael Cera pulled the wool over bloggers with fake reports that the two of them would star in a feature-film version of “Gilligan’s Island.” Oh, you cheeky basterds.