 
GateWorld's interview with Michael Greenburg, one of the architects of the franchise, has been a long time coming. Co-founder of Gekko Film Corp with Richard Dean Anderson, Greenburg helped develop the short-lived television series Legend, as well as working on MacGyver, where he and Rick met and began their partnership. We caught up with Greenburg at Gatecon 2008 in Vancouver. In this interview, Michael takes us back to the very beginning of his work in the industry from the Olympic love story The Golden Moment, through his years on MacGyver and Stargate, and back to his current life in sports. He talks about the stimulating atmosphere of SG-1 and dabbles on his upcoming 2009 TV movie, Game of Shadows. GateWorld's video interview with Michael Greenburg runs approximately 13 minutes, and requires QuickTime 7.0 or higher. The interview is also available at GateWorld Play! |
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GateWorld: For GateWorld.net I'm David Read. I'm here with Mr Michael Greenburg. You were an executive producer on Stargate Atlantis for 8 seasons.
Michael Greenburg: Right ... No, Stargate SG-1!
GW: SG-1! What an idiot I am!
MG: That's OK. No, I'm the idiot! Just ask my son! [Laughter]
GW: You are in sports now.
MG: Well, I started in sports. Right after SC film school, I started in sports, and actually I worked for NBC, for Don Ohlmyer, to be specific. Don Ohlmyer had his own production company. He actually gave me my producing break. He was executive producer of sports for ABC, and then NBC, and then in his NBC contract he got into film. I was always into film, and I knew Don from when I was a production assistant in high school back in New York. He actually gave me my producing break on a mini-series called The Golden Moment.
Greenburg met Rick his first day on the set of MacGyver. | |
So that's when I made the transition into film, which is what I'd been studying at USC, and just sort of from The Golden Moment I ended up spending five years at Warner Bros. working with George England and Joanne Woodward there. I got a call from the head of production at Paramount, Mike Schoenbrun, who I actually took a production course when I was at USC at Paramount, and I met Mike there. He was the assistant director of Mannix and Mission: Impossible -- the series, the original series.
Hhe called me [and said] that they were having trouble with this show that was a big action adventure television show and would I consider coming over to produce it. And it was MacGyver. He said, "Just come over for a few months, get it back on track, then you can get back doing your films." Seven years later I was still with MacGyver!
GW: So in the process you fell in love with the show?
MG: Yeah! MacGyver was a great show. It's an iconic television show, and Rick made it what it was. I mean, his on-camera persona was television's answer to Harrison Ford. I mean, he really made it what it is. Without his personality I don't think it would have been as iconic as it ended up.
GW: It wouldn't have been the same.
MG: It's still talked about today. My kids are watching it now! They're watching the box sets, and their friends are watching it, and loving it. I mean, it's a great show!
GW: Well I mean, it's become a part of American lexicography. You know? It's as real to us and as true to us as "Live long and prosper" and "Beam me up, Scotty." "Oh, I need to MacGyver a way out of this!"
MG: Right! And The Simpsons picked up on it, and Saturday Night Live.
GW: That's exactly right.
MG: You know you did something when you're being spoofed! [Laughter]
GW: Its' the highest form of praise! So, had you not known Rick before then?
MG: No, I met him on MacGyver, first day on the set. I went to his dressing room [and] introduced myself. I think Henry Winkler may have been there, too. We immediately hit it off, because the first thing I wanted to do was to get rid of all the voiceovers. I just thought that was more indicative of a radio show, I think I said at the time.
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Greenburg and Anderson's work on MacGyver spawned a partnership that would last for years. |
We're doing film. Let the pictures do the talking. I don't know why the character has to talk so much, that was the one thing that stood out in the tapes that they sent me. Back then it was tapes, not DVD's. I think he got up, and gave me a big hug, and said "This is going to be great, because, yeah, I don't want to do that anymore either!" [Laughter]
GW: Rick did?
MG: Yeah. So I think that's when we first hit it off, over the concept of where to take the show from that point. But it wasn't me. It was a collective creative environment with Steve Downing, and John Rich, and Henry Winkler, all the way down through our writing staff. Everybody got in sync and that's how we were able to sustain seven years. And the two movies, that we shot in London.
GW: Well, exactly. Yeah, it's such a visually-oriented show. Dialogue, of course, is key in any show, but for me it was always, "What's he going to come up with next?" "How is he going to solve the next problem?"
MG: That was our problem, too!! [Laughter]
GW: Was there a lot of research involved?
MG: Oh, a ton of research! Yeah, a ton of research. And we had a great staff. One of them was Chris Haddock, who went on to be incredibly successful here. One of the more prolific writer--producers in Canada, with Mom PI and Da Vinci's Inquest. We've stayed good friends, and we had a great staff.
GW: When did Gekko [Film Corp] start?
MG: Gekko started the last couple years of MacGyver. Before that it was called "PigDog."
GW: "PigDog?"
MG: Yeah, but our agents and business managers thought that we should have more of a serious name.
GW: And you once told me, I think at Gatecon [2003], the origins of why you chose Gekko?
MG: Well, we were in Tahiti, just on holiday from MacGyver, and the Legend of a Gekko is that their eyes move independently. In the South Pacific, they're known for keeping one eye on the road and one eye on the future. So that was the ...
" MacGyver is still talked about today. My kids are watching it now! "
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GW: Appropriate!
MG: Yeah.
GW: And so Brad and ...
MG: Robert?
GW: Well, not at that point. When Brad got together with Jonathon Glassner, how did you guys get all roped in?
MG: I got a phone call from John Simes. John Simes was our executive at Paramount on MacGyver. He went over to become president of MGM and he called saying that they were making "Stargate" the movie into a television show, would we be interested.
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