Lionsgate is developing a movie reboot of the action-adventure TV series “MacGyver,” with CBS planning a remake of the show.
Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer made the disclosure of both projects on Friday during Lionsgate’s earnings call with analysts. He said the movie would be produced by series creator Lee David Zlotoff and Neal Moritz, producer of “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, but gave no further details.
“MacGyver” ran for seven seasons on ABC in the U.S. from 1985 to 1992 and starred Richard Dean Anderson as secret agent Angus MacGyver, who worked for the Department of External Services. The series is best remembered for MacGyver’s ability to solve complex problems with ordinary objects and his Swiss Army knife.
After the market closed Thursday, Lionsgate had reported sharply lower earnings of $40.7 million, or 27 cents a share — less than half of the year-ago quarter — for its third fiscal quarter. The studio cited soft performance by its movies during the period, which included Jennifer Lawrence’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2” and Vin Diesel’s “The Last Witch Hunter.”
The fourth and final “Hunger Games” movie generated $652 million worldwide, including $280 million in the U.S. — the lowest worldwide total of the four films, which grossed a combined $2.9 billion. Feltheimer said Friday that “Mockingjay — Part 2,” which opened on Nov. 20, had underperformed and cited two factors — the negative impact of the Nov. 15 terror attacks in Paris and its performance in China, where the film grossed $21 million.
Popular on Variety
Rob Friedman, co-chairman of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, cited a third factor in response to a question, saying that “Mockingjay — Part 2” had also been negatively impacted by the strong performance by “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which opened Dec. 16. He said that the seventh “Star Wars” movie had taken away between $50 million to $100 million from the worldwide gross of the final “Hunger Games” film.
“It was a combination of circumstances that were unique,” he added.
