As one of the most beloved shows of its era, The A-Team regularly drew in audiences of over 20 million during the peak of its popularity. After running for almost 100 episodes across five seasons, the action adventure smash hit reached a natural conclusion, but once the trend for big budget Hollywood reboots and remakes kicked into high gear, it was inevitable that the gang would return to our screens.
Joe Carnahan brought the property back to life in 2010, but his blockbuster suffered from mixed reviews and a disappointing commercial performance after earning a little over $177 million on a $110 million budget. There’s still plenty of potential in the concept, though, so it’s surely only a matter of time before The A-Team rides again, even if a planned episodic update of the series fell apart in 2015.
However, Mr. T definitely isn’t on board with the idea. The original star was asked about his thoughts on another potential reinvention, and the former B.A. Baracus hardly minced his words when outlining why he’s not into it.
“They might reboot it but it wouldn’t be the same. Ain’t nothing like the real thing. They tried it with the movie, that didn’t work. And so, we had a certain chemistry. We came into people’s homes every Tuesday night. People got the chance to know us, know what we was about it and all of that. So, it was we had time and it was just I had a good relationship with Dwight Schultz, who played Murdoch and Dirk Benedict, Faceman, and Hannibal, George Peppard. It was just, we had that chemistry.
The best part about The A-Team that I really like that we was playing Army veterans. So, I got a chance when we wasn’t filming, we would go to the veterans’ hospitals and visit the veterans. And also, I like the fact that we never killed nobody on the show. We shot a lot of bullets and blew up a lot of stuff, but The A-Team never killed nobody. And my thing, I spoke a lot at schools and tell the kids to stay in school. Don’t do drugs and listen to their parents and all of that. So, it would’ve been contradicting myself telling them kids don’t bring guns to school and don’t deal with guns and here I am shooting up everybody. I don’t do no cameo on something that I created. Don’t insult me.”
Talk of another reboot has been making the rounds recently, offering that Will Smith was being eyed for an unnamed role in a project that was also hoping to get Michael Bay on board to direct and will be influenced by the Fast & Furious franchise. Admittedly, all of that information came from the same source and hasn’t been corroborated, but the rights now belong to Disney via the company’s 20th Century Studios banner, and it’s not as if the Mouse House are above looking to the past for inspiration. The A-Team will no doubt be revived in some fashion sooner rather than later, then, but it seems as though Mr. T won’t be dropping by for a cameo.
