Comic-Con: 'MacGyver' stars bond in CBS remake
SAN DIEGO — Some entertainment franchises pass the baton. But MacGyver, the 1985-92 series that featured TV's most ingenious fix-it man, is more likely to transform the baton into a life-saving device.
Lucas Till (X-Men franchise), who plays the iconic government agent first embodied by Richard Dean Anderson, and CSI's George Eads, who portrays MacGyver's friend and mission colleague Jack Dalton, displayed some of their characters' chemistry during a Comic-Con dinner break Thursday with USA TODAY.
Angus "Mac" MacGyver still stands out as an action hero who favors brains over brawn, converting household items — the famous bubble gum and a paper clip — into crime-fighting tools, with ex-CIA operative Dalton a blunt counterpoint who nevertheless has a close bond with MacGyver, Till says, mentioning such odd-couple pairings as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon.
Rihanna glimpse in 'Valerian' wows Comic-Con crowd
Comic-Con fans get long peek at new 'Rocky Horror'
"He loves Mac. He'd give his life for Mac," Eads says, adding that he and Till, both Texas natives, have formed a strong friendship and already have weathered a casting shakeup together. "It had been an odd, kind of rough year for me when CSI ended. … Sharing personal issues, things we'd been through in our careers and having real moments as friends, now when we're in these scenes where we're asked to do heavy drama, it is a snap of the finger away."
Till's twenty-something MacGyver is a younger character, but the new CBS series shares most of its DNA with the original, which aired on ABC, and is meant as a tribute, with many Easter-egg reminders hidden in plain sight for longtime fans, executive producer Peter Lenkov said at a Comic-Con panel Thursday. Like the original, episodes will feature an opening gambit, and MacGyver will speak in voiceover.
Lenkov, who already has successfully revived Hawaii Five-0, said he has reached out to Anderson and hopes he will appear on the new series, which will have MacGyver coming up with new inventions to match changing times and technology. James Wan (Saw, The Conjuring, Furious 7) directs the pilot, which, in a scene shown Thursday, features MacGyver stopping a target from jetting away by grabbing onto a plane's underside at takeoff and tinkering with its wiring.
While the original MacGyver was a lone wolf of sorts, Till's Mac will be working with a team, including Dalton; their hardly deskbound boss, Patricia Thornton (Sandrine Holt, Hostages, Terminator: Genisys); and a blackhat tech and hacking expert. Justin Hires (Rush Hour) will portray MacGyver's roommate, Wilt Bozer, and Vinnie Jones (Arrow, Galavant) will make an appearance as a villain. Shooting began earlier this month in Atlanta after much of the supporting cast from the pilot episode was replaced.
You can own, and wear, 'Game of Thrones' dragon power
Comic-Con: Happiness abounds with Justin Timberlake, 'Trolls'
Till, who may have a bit of his own MacGyver DNA as the son of a chemist and a military officer, already has persuaded producers to let him perform a number of MacGyver's tricky stunts. He sports a band-aid on his finger from a cut suffered grabbing the side of a serving tray at the end of a complicated kick-and-catch move.
"They wanted (Lucas) to flip the serving tray and they go, 'You're not going to be able to catch it, so act like you catch it." And he starts getting so into it … he started catching it," Eads says.
His younger colleague smiles. "I enjoy the heck out of this job."