Bookmarked MacGyver: Watch Jared Padalecki as the Hero's Nephew, Young MacGyver by Trevor Kimball (tvseriesfinale.com)

It seems that the MacGyver movie has a good chance of being made. What some fans may not know is that this isn’t the first time a new version has been attempted.

In October 2002, Paramount made a deal with the WB network to produce a pilot for a new MacGyver series. Rather than focusing on Richard Dean Anderson’s character, it would revolve around his nephew. Young MacGyver follows him as he winds up joining the Phoenix Foundation.

Casting got underway in late 2002 and they ended up hiring a pre-Supernatural Jared Padalecki, who’d been working on the network’s Gilmore Girls. He reportedly had to pass on a role in Cheaper By The Dozen to do it. That part ended up going to Smallville’s Tom Welling. The rest of the Young MacGyver pilot’s cast includes Ron Canada, Tracey McCall, Alan Loayza, Lee Burns, Dominic Golden, and Kiele Sanchez.

The project was written by a young writer who was just five years out of Harvard, Samuel Baum. At the time, he jokingly told TV Guide, “It’s been an excruciating writing process for me, because I, of course, have to try all these [makeshift gadgets and] MacGyverisms out before I write them. I’ve actually blown off every finger on both hands rigging all the things that Clay uses.” His digits must have grown back somehow because Baum’s gone on to write many more projects, most recently creating FOX’s Lie to Me series.