John McTiernan reinvented the action movie in the ‘80s with “Predator,” and “Die Hard.” The ‘90s fared just as well for him with “The Hunt For Red October,” “Die Hard With A Vengeance,” “The Last Action Hero,” and “The Thomas Crown Affair.”
The aughts weren’t so kind though, for a number of reasons, “Basic” and “Rollerball” tanked, but he was also convicted of illegally spying on his “Rollerball” producer Charles Roven and sent to jail in 2013. He was eventually released in 2014 and served the remainder of his sentence under house arrest. This led to his declaring bankruptcy on his primary assets.
Despite all that, he has a fervent fanbase in Europe, where his films are still revered to this day, even ‘13th Warrior’ and ‘’Thomas Crown’ have many fans.
McTiernan will be the guest of honor at the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival on July 8th. He’s started to do press for the upcoming festivities and, as always, he’s as honest as ever.
In an interview with France’s Le Matin, he blasted today’s action movies as soulless:
Today’s action movies are filled with hate. People keep sending me scripts over and over again, and I keep sending them back. It's just awful.
He then goes on to criticize Tom Cruise’s ‘Mission: Impossible’ movies, confessing he was actually supposed to direct the 1996 original:
I was asked to direct the first “Mission Impossible”. And I had a meeting with Tom Cruise. By this time, he had already started to become Mr. Cool. He was the head of the mission. And for me, you couldn't develop anything from that.
I'm really going to have problems with Tom Cruise. But what can I do? Listen: his movies are all about his cool side. These are not movies but advertisements for the Tom Cruise brand.
McTiernan hasn’t directed a film in over 20 years. He implies that the reason why is the shape-shifting change within the industry:
Money. I don't want to work for the studios, and I'm not interested in remaking a movie I've already done. I have a few projects I'm working on. I was about to start filming again when the Covid hit and destroyed everything.
Yes, indeed, McTiernan was supposed to shoot a new film in Paris last fall, titled “Taut Ceci Foxtrot,” which, as he mentions above, got delayed.
It was supposed to star Uma Thurman and Laurence Fishburne and tell the story of a group of rebels who set out to kill the oligarchs and military thugs that terrorized a war-torn planet in the remote Tau Ceti solar system.
“I have continued to write and I believe I have strength, years left. I am just as angry now as when I was 19,” adds the 72-year-old McTiernan.
He goes on to say that he has another “project with a female protagonist that I would like to film - a fairly simple story, without excessive depth.”