Hollywood doesn’t make everyone happy. The careers of some great directors end in insignificance, the direct-to-video section or in psychotherapy. But rarely did a career experience one such a spectacular collapse like that of Die Hard director John McTiernan: after all, he was sentenced to prison for his crime.
Not just Die Hard: John McTiernan was an absolute action genius
In the early 1990s, McTiernan, who had begun his directing career in the middle of the previous decade with the horror film Nomads, was considered one of Hollywood’s most sought-after action talents. He directed Die Hard, which gave Bruce Willis his great career in the first place. But that wasn’t all.
He previously gifted Arnold Schwarzenegger with the Sci-Fi-Kult Predator a cinema hit. Both films founded a franchise with various sequels and millions of fans. McTiernan himself continued the Die Hard series extremely successfully with Die Hard – Now. He also created one of the best thrillers of the early 90s with Hunt for Red October.
But he was also responsible for hair-raising flops. And on a scale that no studio can ignore: Last Action Hero, now a cult film, put a serious dent in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career and was for many a sign that the action heroes of the 80s had had their day. But that was nothing compared to The 13th Warrior.
Watch the trailer for The 13th Warrior here:
The 13th Warrior – Trailer (German)
The Viking epic with Antonio Banderas is one of the biggest flops in film history, according to Slash Film the producers barely lost 100 million US dollars through its failure. After this historic misstep, McTiernan tried to keep his career afloat with the sci-fi action Rollerball and the thriller Basic. Both failed critically and at the box office. But McTiernan’s career might have recovered. If he hadn’t been convicted of a crime.
John McTiernan’s crime ended his career
In 2006 the director became loud Hollywood Reporter accused of lying to the FBI. The federal agency investigated a private detective named Anthony Pellicano, with whom McTiernan had apparently discussed a wiretapping operation: The director apparently considered spying on his producer Charles Roven during the production of Rollerball. McTiernan and Roven disagreed over the creative direction of the film and it is possible that McTiernan wanted to push him out of production.
The process dragged on for years. The director initially pleaded guilty, then changed his mind and was in the meantime sued by his wife due to an alleged wiretapping. In the end, the court condemned him loudly BBC to one year in prison. As of 2014, he served 328 days behind bars.
Be Staying in prison is in many ways “great” been, McTiernan later explained to the Guardian . Not least perhaps because the prison is a former college campus “without barbed wire and bars” turned out to be the case. He was assigned to a team for carpentry work with whom, according to his own statement, he took care of the repairs “Victorian houses“cared.
Shortly after his release, McTiernan lost his ranch in the US state of Wyoming and filed for bankruptcy and the court appointed an administrator of his royalties, like him Hollywood Reporter reported. The new regulation should paying off his debts advance. Due to the lengthy process, the director apparently had to repeatedly borrow money.
21 years after his last film: Die Hard director has plans for the future
Since then, McTiernan has been more or less quiet. In 2017, Ubisoft released his short film The Red Dot as part of the PR campaign for the video game Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands. He wants to make various films, before he dies, quote him World of Reel from a recent interview.
It is difficult to estimate whether anything will come of this. Fans of his undeniably masterful films like Die Hard or Predator will want it. But Hollywood seems to be slow to forget.
