MACGRUBER And The End Of Modern Civilization

Sometimes I pick up the Bible and read it when I'm severely troubled and anxious. For some reason, reading about God killing hundreds of thousands of people through plague, pestilence, and fiery hailstones brings me a sense of comfort and peace. One passage that always interests me is the book of Revelation, and its terrifying depiction of the end of the world. In my imagination, I wonder what events might lead to the ride of the four horsemen, the battle of Armageddon, and the new world to come. Certainly a MACGRUBER movie must play a part, right? In several lifetimes, you'd be hard-pressed to uncover a sadder or more bewildering news item than the one that The Hollywood Reporter ran today, namely, that Val Kilmer and Ryan Phillippe are in talks to star in a big screen version of the Saturday Night Live short MACGRUBER. The film will hit screens next year, two years before the actual end of civilization predicted by the Mayan calendar. Almost every single film fashioned from the huge roster of SNL skits has failed miserably. Of them all, only WAYNE'S WORLD succeeded. However, unlike WAYNE'S WORLD, MACGRUBER wasn't even a full-fledged skit. It was a minute long insert to the show, repeated throughout the broadcast. For the sake of comparison, it's like trying to create a dining room tablecloth out of a cocktail napkin rather than a paper towel. To be honest, the film will probably cost $5 million dollars ($3.5 for Val Kilmer's salary and catering expenses), and will probably gross somewhere around that figure, so it'll probably break even. But is that a sufficient reason to pursue the project? It's so cheap and small and insipidly stupid. And what good can come from Phillippe joining this pointless venture? He was so good in STOP-LOSS, and he has some untapped ability - why waste it on this?? There are so many great scripts sitting out there among the unconnected screenwriters inside and outside the Hollywood system, yet shit like this continues to see greenlights and bags of money. It's a depressing commentary on the flaccid state of American entertainment. I think I'll go read the Bible again. Armageddon is starting to sound pretty damn good to me.