Yes, it is true Mr. Cannell himself confirmed the rumour, an A-team movie is going to be made.
So far for the good news. The bad news is that Mr. Cannell is planning to recast the team.
This is what Stephen J. Cannell said in an AOL chat session dated Tuesday, August 6th, 1996:
AbcLIVE:Ruoti10 has this to say --
Question:A lot of A-Team fans are upset that the original actors won't star
in The A-Team movie. Is that definite? Or do you plan to create totally new
characters for the movie? I hope no one replaces the original Team.
CannellSJ:George Peppard has passed away. And pretty generally, the feeling
is when you do a big budget feature film based
on a television show, you should replace all the leads so that the movie does
not feel like a television episode, but I intend to offer parts to the old
cast of the show if they are available and if Universal agrees. Stay tuned on
that one.
--cut---
Question:first, I want to say that I love just about all of your shows.
Thanks for some great television! I was wondering (as part of the On The
Jazz mailing list) what you can tell us about the new "A-Team" movie. As big
fans of the "A-Team", my friends
and I are very worried that Hollywood will try to ruin it like they have
other movies.
CannellSJ:I'm going to be involved in supervising the scripting as well as
producing the A-Team movie, so I hope you won't be disappointed.
For a full transcript of this interview see On The Jazz newsletter volume 2 issue 24
So Mr. Cannell wants to honour the original cast with a small role in the new movie. Sonja Horstman asked Dwight Schultz (Murdock) about it at a Star Trek Con dated 18 Aug 1996:
I visited a Star Trek Con in Hamm / Germany last Sunday and guess who was there?
Dwight Schultz. I missed his panel but in the afternoon he was signing things
along with Robert O'Reilly. When it was my turn I handed him an old A-Team
Poster Magazine which he quite liked (almost everyone else had brought
along ST related material for signing) and asked him about the movie. (You would
all have condemned me if I didn't, right?) He said "no one has ever been
contacted to retake his former role in a new production of the A-Team". I
think he said "no one has ever been contacted" at least twice...But he
thinks it could be possible that the three survivors would be offered some
cameo roles like storekeepers or thrashmen.
last update: 2-feb-97