Exclusive Cannes News: Will Forte Offers MacGruber 2 Update

I thought it was very important at the Cannes Film Festival to get an update on the long-awaited MacGruber 2. Will Forte was at a press conference for the dramedy Nebraska from director Alexander Paine, and I waited until the press conference was over to go up to Forte for an exclusive. He was pleasantly surprised to be asked about Grubes in France.

“We’re going to start trying to write it in a couple of weeks,” Forte said.

The writing of a MacGruber sequel has been touch and go for fans. Last year, MacGruber director Jorma Taccone started talking about making a sequel. At the same time, Forte was doing press for the Adam Sandler film That’s My Boy and covered his bases by assuring press that it was “almost certainly never going to happen.”

But then there was hope. Forte told us he would still write the script. He was just doubtful any studio would make it. Universal released MacGruber to a $3 million opening. His timeframe back then was six months, and that was a year ago, so the making of Nebraska might have taken him away, or the MacGruber team’s other commitments kept them apart until now. So the latest is two weeks to page one.

I followed up with: How will this experience prepare you to play MacGruber again? but admittedly that’s too weird a question for an early morning when you’re still on L.A. time in France. Forte laughed but didn’t know how to respond. We will have a roundtable with Forte and the cast of Nebraska tomorrow.

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Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.