Though it has since become a cult classic, the star and writer of one Saturday Night Live spinoff movie admits its bombing hit them pretty deeply at first. Lorne Michaels’ iconic sketch comedy show has not only seen its fair share of recurring sketches, but many also use their popularity on it to springboard onto the big screen. This adaptation trend got off to a strong start in the ’80s and early ’90s thanks to the successes of Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi’s The Blues Brothers, Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts and Mike Myers and Dana Carvey’s Wayne’s World.
The years that followed saw Saturday Night Live-based movies met with lesser and lesser success, with the likes of Aykroyd’s Coneheads, Julia Sweeney’s It’s Pat, Al Franken’s Stuart Saves His Family and Tim Meadows’ The Ladies Man all flopping at the box office. Though there were a few modest box office successes during the time, namely Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan’s A Night at the Roxbury and Ferrell and Molly Shannon’s Superstar, the majority of films based on sketches from the show only found their fanbases on home media, with one in particular building a major cult following.
MacGruber’s Box Office Bombing Was “Very Hard” For Will Forte

It Also Taught Him The Importance Of Making The Movie “You Want To Make”

The last official Saturday Night Live-based movie came in the form of 2010’s MacGruber, adapting the MacGyver parody sketch into a feature-length action comedy with Will Forte reprising his role and co-writing the script with Jorma Taccone, who also made his feature directorial debut on the film, and John Solomon. Also starring Kristen Wiig as his love interest, Ryan Phillippe as a straight-laced military lieutenant and Val Kilmer as the villainous Dieter von Cunth, MacGruber saw mixed reviews from critics and was a box office flop, ultimately grossing $9.3 million against its $10 million production budget.
During an appearance on the latest episode of First We Feast’s Hot Ones, Forte was asked about how MacGruber’s box office bombing impacted him. The co-writer/star acknowledged that, within the first few weeks of its release, it was “very hard” for him and his team to come to terms with, though later decided to say “f–k it” and celebrate that they got to make the movie they wanted to make, and still remains “weirdly very proud of that movie” 15 years later. Check out Forte’s reflection in the quote and video below:

The main thing that I learned from that experience, because we were very weirdly proud of that movie, as disgusting as it is. We got to make the exact movie that we set out to make. It bombed, and it was very hard, but knowing, “Oh, this was the exact movie we wanted to make” made it so much easier. After a couple of weeks, we said, “You know what, f—k it. We love this movie, let’s not let these headlines of ‘MacGruber Bombs’ taint this experience for us. Let’s just be proud of what we did.” Do the movie you want to make, not try to make decisions for other people. If you’re making the decisions for yourself, you can live with it, no matter what happens.

Our Take On MacGruber’s Bombing & Forte’s Reflection

The Movie’s Cult Following Is More Important Than Its Box Office

Given the movie was only Forte’s second leading-man role in a film after 2007’s The Brothers Solomon, on which he was also a writer, it’s understandable why MacGruber’s box office bombing proved hard for him at the time. That being said, it certainly wasn’t the worst-performing Saturday Night Live movie financially, as It’s Pat infamously made just shy of $61,000 at the box office against its reported $8 million production budget. See how MacGruber compared to other SNL theatrical releases on Rotten Tomatoes and the box office in the chart below:

Title

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score

Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

Box Office

Production Budget

The Blues Brothers

71%

92%

$115.2 Million

$27.5 Million

Wayne’s World

79%

84%

$183.1 Million

$20 Million

Coneheads

37%

38%

$21.2 Million

$33 Million

Wayne’s World 2

60%

63%

$72 Million

$30 Million

It’s Pat

0%

29%

$60,822

$8 Million

Stuart Saves His Family

30%

53%

$912,082

$6.3 Million

Blues Brothers 2000

46%

37%

$14.1 Million

$28 Million

A Night at the Roxbury

11%

69%

$30.3 Million

$17 Million

Superstar

32%

59%

$30.6 Million

$14 Million

The Ladies Man

11%

42%

$13.7 Million

$24 Million

MacGruber

47%

35%

$9.3 Million

$10 Million

As Forte notes, the bigger takeaway for him and his creative team is that they made MacGruber the way they ultimately wanted to, a rarity when dealing with studios. However, even while its box office may indicate a lackluster connection with viewers, the movie’s long-standing cult following certainly speaks to the opposite, with even Christopher Nolan expressing his admiration for the film. More than Forte, the same is true of many of Jorma Taccone’s projects, with Hot Rod similarly being a financial failure, but having a very passionate fanbase.
Arguably the biggest sign of why the movie’s fanbase is all the more impressive is that, after over a decade of campaigning for a sequel, a MacGruber sequel show would be produced in 2021, and went on to garner acclaim from critics and audiences alike, holding 85% and 81% approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. While I would have liked to see the film perform better on its original release, it is heartening to hear Forte remains proud of the film and took away meaningful lessons from its reception to take into future projects.
Source: Hot Ones

MacGruber

7/10

Release Date

May 21, 2010

Runtime

88 minutes

Director

Jorma Taccone

Writers

Will Forte

Producers

John Goldwyn, Lorne Michaels