MacGruber Adds Mickey Rourke, Laurence Fishburne, and Sam Elliott to Cast

The Peacock ordered MacGruber TV series, a follow-up to the Saturday Night Live based comedy film, has just taken a major step forward with the addition of some new cast members. According to Variety, Academy Award nominated actor Sam Elliott, Laurence Fishburne, and Mickey Rourke have all signed on to appear in the new series alongside returning cast members Will Forte, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe. Elliot will take on the part of Perry, MacGruber's father, with Fishburne playing General Barrett Fasoose, and Rourke the new villain for the series, Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth. An official description for the series was also revealed which reads:

"After rotting in prison for over a decade, America's ultimate hero and uber patriot MacGruber (Forte) is finally released. His mission: to take down a mysterious villain from his past—Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth (Rourke). With the entire world in the crosshairs, MacGruber must reassemble his old team, Vicki St. Elmo (Wiig) and Dixon Piper (Phillippe) in order to defeat the forces of evil." The Peacock original series has been given an eight episode order, each running half an hour, with director Jorma Taccone on board to direct the new installments.

Official descriptions for the new characters offer some details including:

• Though they've drifted apart over the years, MacGruber will need his father's sage guidance if he hopes to succeed.
• In addition to his illustrious career, General Barrett Fasoose (Fishburne) is currently married to MacGruber's ex-wife, Vicki St. Elmo.

Forte will also write and executive produce this new series with John Solomon and Taccone,with the trio previously collaborating on the MacGruber film. Lorne Michael, John Goldwyn, Andrew Singer, and Erin David will also executive produce the series.

MacGruber began as a recurring sketch on SNL as a parody of MacGyver, appearing in a handful of episodes on the sketch series. After this he made the leap to the big screen, like some other SNL characters before like Blues Brothers, Wayne's World, and It's Pat. The movie was a major flop upon release, grossing less than its $10 million budget at the domestic box office and becoming one of the biggest disappointments of the year.

Despite all of that the film now has a cult reputation and a major following from film fans around the world (even Oscar nominee Christopher Nolan claims to be a fan) and it's partially because of the relentless optimism from MacGruber fans worldwide that has resulted in this series happening.