It’s unclear what’s in store for Havok in X-Men: Apocalypse and beyond, but it looks like 25-year-old Lucas Till has finally found his headlining role. The actor will step out from the Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Fassbender, and James McAvoy-led superhero franchise to star as the new MacGyer in CBS’ upcoming pilot.

Richard Dean Anderson famously played MacGyver in the original TV series from 1985 to ’92 about a secret agent who prefers to use his vast scientific knowledge instead of a gun on missions. The pilot reboots the series as a 20-something man who’s recruited into an organization to use his problem-solving skills to stop disasters from happening. The news of Till’s casting was confirmed by Variety.


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Image via 20th Century Fox

The Conjuring 2 director James Wan was attached to a movie version of MacGyver a few years ago that he would eventually abandon. Wan will serve as an executive producer on the new series, but he described his original vision for the film to CraveOnline last year:

My initial concept was I wanted to do a young college MacGyver who went to Boston, one of the great universities, who’s really brilliant, right? He’s so smart he could never feel like he fit into a world that is an establishment. So he’s always a bit of an outsider. He’s very crafty, he’s very smart, all kinds of science and mathematics and engineering. I wanted to put my MacGyver story around something like a North by Northwest: He gets blamed for something that he had designed, something really big that’s something everyone wanted, and now someone has weaponized it and everyone’s coming after him. He’s running for his life and he’s trying to clear his name, not quite unlike the structure of Enemy of the State. So imagine Enemy of the State if Will Smith had the brains of MacGyver.

Scott Gemmill (NCIS: Los Angeles) wrote the original the script, but the new take hails from Paul Downs Colaizzo and Brett Mahoney. Meanwhile, Lionsgate announced they’re in the development stage on a MacGyver movie.