After years of speculation, a big-screen version of the Best Television Show Ever is fianlly in the works. We love it when a plan comes together. Series creator Stephen J. Cannell tells more..

Total Movie: So congratulations! The A-Team is something you've been trying to make into a movie for a long time, right?

Stephen J. Cannell: Yeah, I always thought that this project was a natural for a summer movie. It was the number-one action show of the Eighties, and it has just so much to recommend it.

TM: One of your personal favorites?

SJC: Well, obviously it was a huge hit. But I get asked that question alot - which of the forty or so shows that I created or co-created do I most prefer - and it's an impossible question. The ones that worked, like The A-Team or The Rockford Files or Wiseguy or 21 Jump Street or Renegade... those shows were fun to write and fun to watch when we got 'em cut together. The right elements were in place. They all have their own place in my nostalgic memory, and I try not to favor one over the other.

TM: What was it about The A-Tema in particular that made it so popular for so long?

SJC: I think what made it work so well was that it really was a one-off show. So much in television is reminiscent of shows of the past, but our brief from NBC was to create a show that really had its own attitude, and not to pay attention to any of the rules of drama, and that allowed Frank Lupo and I to make the most dysfunctional bunch of people we could come up with, and break all the rules of what a hero is supposed to be. I'd always toyed with the idea of doing a Soldier of Fortune type show - you know, those guys in the back of those magazines who are advertising to go kick ass in another country for you - but I knew no network would ever let me do a show like that because it has such a scummy flavor to it. But we started with that, and then created these great characters: Hannibal, who couldn't enjoy himself unless everybody else's life was at risk, B.A., who hated everyone else in the group but who had a soft spot in his heart for children, which was his redeeming factor; Howling Mad Murdock, who was totally insane - he had an invisible dog named Billy - and the team had to break him out of a mental institution every time they needed to go somewhere, and Faceman, who was just the absolute inveterate liar - a guy who could not tell the truth even if it was in his best interest. Together, absolutely dysfunctional. They didn't behave well together; they often didn't seem to like one another. The fun of it when you were writing it was to say things like, 'Okay, what's Murdock doing this week that just completely pisses off B.A.?' The story each week was secondary to the dynamics of the characters. We told one story over and over again - our prototype lantern-jawed heavy would try to take over somebody else's property, and the A-Team would roll into town and decimate them. It was always the same show, but we'd have different character things playing between our guys every week. Because really it's a comedy.

TM: There's been talk of an A-Team movie for years now. Is it really going to happen this time?

SJC: There's a thing with TV shows that they have to be off the shelf for a while before you can make them into a movie. Movie studios aren't that interested in a series that was done in the Eighties. All the big ones, like Mission:Impossible and The Fugitive, came out of the Sixties. So the A-Team is definitely one of the more recent shows to get a movie treatment, but now it's finally enough down the road - we premiered it in 1983, so it's nearly twenty years old - that we can bring it back and it'll be fresh.

TM: Who are the major players in the film deal?

SJC: The movie's been set up at Fox 2000, with my company and Top Cow Productions, which as you know makes comic books. Their enthusiasm was very instrumental in bringing it forward.

TM: How will you be involved?

SJC: I think I'm a producer, but I'd have to read the contract. I've got about five movies set up over here right now, and to be honest with you, I can't remember what I'm doing on all of them!

TM: So what kind of input will you be bringing to the movie?

SJC: I expect to have something to say about it. It's my creation. I think we're certainly going to be redifining it - we don't want it to be just a carbon copy of the TV series. It needs to be redeveloped for this millenium. It probably won't be quite as cartoonish as it was as a series. But we only just closed the deal and we're getting set to go into our first meetings on it, so I don't want to characterize it as one thing or another. I want to listen to what other people think as well. But my natural inclination is make it realistic, with humor, and not let it get quite as goofy as the TV series was. But I might go to the first meeting and people there will want to take it in a completely different direction, and we'll have to discuss that.

TM: Do you have an overall vision for the project?

SJC: I have a way that I would do it, but I'm not sure that's the way other people will want to do it. I've taken myself out of the mix as a writer on this project, simply because having written so many of the episodes, my mind is poisoned by what already was there. We need to come at this thing in a really fresh way and not close out any cool ideas that can re-develop the show - without losing that general feeling of this dysfunctional bunch of guys who get together and help people who are being trashed by the system. It could be that the movie we come up with is very different to the show. We could decide, because there's the possibility of a franchise here, that the movie should be kind of a first episode that sets the A-Team in motion.

TM: Do you have a wish-list for who you'd like to see in the leads?

SJC: For Hannibal, I can certainly see people like Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson - somebody who has some sense of humor, that twinkle. For B.A., I'm not sure who I would cast, but I've heard names like Dennis Rodman come up. It certainly needs to be someone with a different take on the character. For Faceman, I hadn't given a lot of thought to it, but maybe a Brad Pitt or a Tom Cruise - somebody who's a realcharmer. And for Murdock, maybe Jim Carrey. You're obviously not going to get four really huge stars to go into the picture together, but at this point I hope we can get at least one, if not two, A-list names.

TM: What kind of budget do you have to spend?

SJC: It's going to have to be fairly large to do justice to a high-action series like this.

TM: Are there any specific signature elements from the original TV series that you're attached to? Would you put your foot down and say, "We have to keep the van!"?

SJC: Oh, I never put my foot down. It's not in me. I will argue if I think somebody has a bad idea, but if somebody came up with something much cooler and better than the van, I'd be first to say, "Let's drop the van."

TM: When are you planning to have the movie out?

SJC: Hopefully in around 18 months to two years.

TM: Will you be asking any of the original TV cast members to come back?

SJC: Oh, I would love them to come in and play cameos.

TM: Any other TV shows you'd like to come back as a movie?

SJC: Well I've got Greatest American Hero set up at Disney right now, so we'll see..."

The End