TV studios like to use the words “redo”, “restart”, “revival” and “spin-off”, with many of them having seemingly interchangeable definitions, but what, truth, is the difference? The most straightforward interpretation would probably be that a remake is a new version of an old thing, a reboot is a different version of an old thing, a revival is the continuation of an old thing, and an unfolding is a new thing that is related to a different thing. Whether these definitions are confirmed or not, CBS is now facing a process that depends partly on how to interpret those words.
According to Deadline, two groups called Hanzer Holdings and Arlita Inc. filed a lawsuit against CBS in 2018 over the then new MacGyver, claiming that they are “successors of interest” from the well-known Principal Talent Agency, which was the packaging agent behind the original MacGyver Series. You must remember the concept of “packaging” of the battle between Hollywood writers and agents that took place a few years ago, but the relevant part here is that the Major Talent Agency apparently got some kind of nebulous third party participation in the original MacGyver in 1984, as well as “each series produced” as part of the same business, and now these two other companies claim to have inherited that stake.
It seems that the argument of Hanzer and Arlita is that, as a “spin-off” of the original series, the new MacGyver part of the original MacGyver franchise and therefore qualified as part of any original agreement made by the MTA. Meanwhile, CBS’s response is essentially, “This is not the way it works, this is not the way it works”. CBS says that neither she nor Paramount (who owned the MacGyver previous rights) have already entered into any type of agreement with Hanzer Holdings and “have never heard of plaintiff Arlita Inc.” until the lawsuit was filed, but even if they did, the wording of the original agreement (as submitted by the plaintiffs) “does not even apply to remakes” – which is what CBS says the new MacGyver really is.
So there are two angles here: the old paperwork says what Hanzer and Arlita say and, if so, makes an agreement regarding the original MacGyver also belong to the new MacGyver? If we get to that second point, studios may actually have to start paying attention to what they call projects, and one day we can stop referring to each remake / reboot / revival / spin-off / anything like a remake / reboot / revival / spin-off / anything.