What the Hell Happened to John McTiernan?

John McTiernan was a Julliard graduate who became one of the biggest directors of the later 80’s and early 90’s.  His directing career got off to a quick start.  Within a few films, he was directing the biggest movie star in the world and reinventing genres altogether.  He directed the movies that made Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis into viable action stars.  But soon after, the hits stopped coming.  But McTiernan’s troubles didn’t end with his career cooling off.  The former A-list director spent 328 days in prison!

What the hell happened?

McTiernan attended two of the world’s most prestigious arts schools in Juilliard and the AFI Conservatory.  He graduated from AFI in 1976 and set about a career in film.  He did some commercial work before his big break came.

Nomads - 1986
Nomads – 1986

In 1986, McTiernan wrote and directed the supernatural thriller, Nomads.

Pierce Brosnan, then known for Remington Steele, played a French anthropologist who is an expert on nomads.  Hey, everyone has SOME specialty.  Brosnan dies in the first secene!  Lesley-Anne Down co-starred as a young doctor who attends to Brosnan in his final hours.  Somehow, the future 007 passes his memories on to her and she relives the last week of his life

In flashbacks, Brosnan stumbles upon some “urban nomads” (Roma, maybe?) who seem captivated by a recent morbid murder string. He comes to realize the people are actually Mad Max-evoking Inuit demons that are attracted to violence and death. They gradually begin to take over the city of LA. Brosnan and his wife, played by Anna Maria Monticelli must flee.

The movie got smoked at the box office, opening at number 12, behind Out of Africa, which was in its twelfth week. Nomads was drubbed by critics.  But a certain Austrian body-builder-turned actor was impressed with McTiernan’s tense atmosphere on a small budget.

arnie predator
Predator – 1987

McTiernan followed up Nomads with the sci-fi thriller, Predator.

Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as a muscled-up Delta Force Major who leads a group of macho commandos into the jungle.  But the mission takes an unexpected turn when the soldiers find they are being hunted by an alien monster with dreadlocks.

Predator actually began as a sly (literally Sly) joke in Hollywood. Following Rocky IV, the question was asked: Who was left for Sylvester Stallone to box? The answer came in the form of what, not who. Joel Silver noticed the sci-fi script, and saw an action film in its core. McTiernan, who had only directed one horror film prior, was enlisted to direct.  According to Schwarzenegger’s autobiography, he picked the director based on Nomads.

Schwarzenegger was immediately approached for the lead role.  He was impressed with the originality of the script, but requested a few changes:

The first thing I look for in a script is a good idea, a majority of scripts are rip-offs of other movies. People think they can become successful overnight. They sat down one weekend and wrote a script because they read that Stallone did that with Rocky. Predator was one of the scripts I read, and it bothered me in one way. It was just me and the alien. So we re-did the whole thing so that it was a team of commandos and then I liked the idea. I thought it would make a much more effective movie and be much more believable. I liked the idea of starting out with an action-adventure, but then coming in with some horror and science fiction.

Van Damme - Predator
Jean-Claude Van Damme and Carl Weathers filming Predator

The supporting cast was rounded out by Carl Weathers (Apollo Creed), Jesse “You Can’t Legislate Stupidity!” Ventura, and Jean-Claude Van Damme as the Predator itself.

The original intent was for the Predator to be an agile, sprightly alien. The ideas was nixed when the burly Schwarzenegger went up against the lithe Van Damme. Van Damme was miserable in the costume and let his feelings be known.  According to the Muscles from Brussels:

They did a cast of my body. My feet were in the cast of the alien. My hands were in the forearms, my head was in the neck. I was moving everything with cables. It was a very unsecure, very dangerous type of outfit. It didn’t work for nobody. They put air conditioning into my back, because it was very hot in Mexico. So they did another outfit with a bigger guy, taller guy on the inside. So I was hired, then I was cancelled.

Kevin Peter Hall, imposing at 7’3”, took over the costume and took the character in a new direction.

Predator shoot
Predator shoot

The movie’s shoot in the jungles outside Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico were legendarily hellish. Traveller’s diarrhea was passed to every single member of the shoot, Schwarzenegger was covered in mud for three weeks straight for the final scene, leech-infested waters, shooting for days on an inclined plane, and Hall’s inability to see outside his costume. Hall could not fake a punch, he would swing and Schwarzenegger would have to evade the punch for real.

The difficulties of production did not shine through in theaters, however. The movie opened at number 1 with 1987’s second highest opening weekend. Reviews were initially mixed, but critics have since gone contrariwise, adding Predator many “Best of…” lists.

The pressure was on McTiernan to deliver a hit parallel to his last success. Being that Predator was only his sophomore film, a flop might lead to McTiernan being labelled an amateur whose success was one-off and a fluke. McTiernan’s response to this pressure was a little film called Die Hard.

Die Hard - 1988
Die Hard – 1988

The following year, McTiernan established himself as an A-list action director with the classic 80’s action movie, Die Hard.

Bruce Willis, who was best-known for the TV dramedy, Moonlighting at the time, starred as a New York cop who flies to LA to try to reconnect with his estranged wife played by Bonnie Bedelia.  She works in a high rise building that is taken over by terrorists lead by a Eurotrashy villain played by Alan Rickman.  But the bad guys don’t count on Willis going into rogue cop action mode.

The script that became Die Hard was kicked around for some time in Hollywood. Its first incarnation was as a sequel to the Frank Sinatra film The Detective. The Sinatra movie was based on a novel by  Roderick Thorp.  When the movie was a hit, Thorp wrote a sequel to his original novel.  The 1979 sequel was called Nothing Lasts Forever.  The studio was contractually obligated to offer the lead role in the movie adaptation to the 73-year-old crooner.

Sinatra reportedly said that he was “too old and too rich” for acting.  So the name of the protagonist was changed and the script morphed into what we know as Die Hard.  The lead role was kicked from one agent’s office to another. Sylvester Stallone, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, and Don Johnson all turned it down. Willis was offered a $5 million salary to headline the movie.  The amount raised eyebrows in Hollywood since Willis was considered a TV actor and not remotely an action hero.

Die Hard - 1988
Die Hard – 1988

Only, Willis really didn’t anchor the film, at least not in the marketing of it. Although the studio was not confident in Willis’ ability to bower the movie, McTiernan saw the appeal of an affable everyman saving the day, as opposed to a musclebound hero a la Schwarzenegger or Stallone.

Audiences agreed and Willis, Rickman, and McTiernan powered the movie to a very positive financial return and a great critical reception.  Die Hard opened in the number three slot, behind Who Framed Roger Rabbit in week number five, and Coming to America in its fourth week.  Die Hard never ranked higher than second place at the box office.  But positive word of mouth and repeat viewings gave the movie legs and it ended up as the seventh highest grossing movie of 1988.

Though the film was an unqualified hit, Die Hard’s legacy is worth far more than its $140 million take. First of all, the film spawned four sequels Die Hard 2 of 1990, Die Hard with a Vengeance of 1995 (to be revisited), Live Free or Die Hard of 2007, and A Good Day to Die Hard of 2013. The film’s core storyline of a lone Third Estate-kinda guy battling nefarious forces in an isolated setting gave birth to the following descriptor: “Die Hard on a (blank)”. Used as so:

Under Siege (1992, starring Steven Seagal): “Die Hard on a boat”

Passenger 57 (1992, starring Wesley Snipes): “Die Hard on a plane”

Cliffhanger (1993, starring Sylvester Stallone): “Die Hard on a mountain”

Speed (1994, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock): “Die Hard on a bus”

The Rock (1996, starring Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery): “Die Hard on an island”

The Rock - Die Hard on an Island
The Rock – Die Hard on an Island

As you can see, Die Hard inspired alot of imitators. The notion of a lone hero, an everyday Joe, taking on an enemy much larger than he is became the direction of action films post-Die Hard. “Just drop your leading man into a setting, stay there the entire film, and allow things to unfold” became the template adopted by the industry as a whole. McTiernan truly did reshape action cinema by, in essence, simplifying things.

The Hunt for Red October - 1990
The Hunt for Red October – 1990

In 1990, McTiernan moved from straight-up action into political suspense with the big screen adaptation of Tom Clancy’s novel, The Hunt for Red October.

Sean Connery starred as a Russian submarine captain with a Scottish brogue.  When he takes his sub into American waters,  CIA analyst Jack Ryan (played here by a pre-fame Alec Baldwin), has to determine whether or not Connery poses a threat.

The Hunt For Red October - 1990
The Hunt For Red October – 1990

The film’s producer first caught wind of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character prior to the book’s publication. When the novel shot to the top of the charts and remained there, Hollywood studios started knocking on the door. However, they soon lost interest after making the determination the novel was too complex, and not entirely original. Mace Neufeld, the eagle-eyed producer, persuaded Paramount to launch the project.

The role of Jack Ryan was to go to an upstart rising star as opposed to an established one. Baldwin was sought out, and he signed on the play the lead role. Paramount felt that an established star was a must, though. After all, this was a big-budget film, and they needed an anchor. Not that submarines have them.

Connery, removed from Bond, and more recently removed from the Indiana Jones franchise, was pursued to fill this role. At this juncture, the filmmakers were two weeks from the scheduled production start date. So after scrambled negotiations (where Connery presumably emerged very pleased), the film was set with Connery and Baldwin in the two lead roles, divided by the Cold War. Connery as a Soviet submarine commander, and Baldwin as the American super spy Ryan.

The film, unable to shoot inside of actual submarines, designed its sets with verisimilitude. Connery described the sets, which were very confined, built 45 feet in the air, very hot, and able to be tilted up to 45 degrees, as ” very disturbing”. For shots above sea level, also known as the Plimsoll line (thanks, Boating 101!), full-scale mockups of the submarines were constructed, for it was the era before CGI. McTiernan and Connery, both reportedly prone to severe seasickness, stayed ashore for mostly all of the maritime shoots. The movie’s production could have gone wrong Waterworld-style, but nothing disastrous happened.

Time Magazine Cover - 1990
Time Magazine Cover – 1990

As the film neared release, things outside the shoot were frenzied. The USSR, the film’s villain, was in its death throes. There were worries the empire’s impending implosion would render the film “irrelevant”. These anxieties proved unfounded, as audiences indicated they were up for one more cinematic Soviet throw down. The movie lit up the box office, nearly septupling its budget. Critics praised the film, and McTiernan’s direction was singled out as being skillful.

Medicine Man - 1992
Medicine Man – 1992

In 1992, McTiernan reuinted with Connery for the romantic adventure movie, Medicine Man.

Connery starred as an eccentric scientist working on a cure for cancer in the jungles of the Amazon.  Apparently eccentric is code for “chauvinist” because he rejects the help of a female research assistant played by Lorraine Bracco.  But since this is a movie, the 38-year-old Bracco was contractually obligated to fall for the 62-year-old former 007.

Did you hear that?  At the end of the trailer?  McTiernan was referred to by name instead of “the director of Die Hard“.  That’s how you know you’re an a-list director.  When they mention your name in the trailer.

Medicine Man appears to have been designed as an Oscar bait-type film, casting a highly respected Oscar nominee in the leading role, and a rising prestige star as his foil. Bracco was hot off of Goodfellas at the time.  Despite the hopes of everyone involved, the final product essentially stunk.  The Academy would not give it the time of day.

So its release date was shifted into the gloomy pits of early February.  Despite opening in first place, Medicine Man failed to recover its production costs. Critics savaged its sappiness and insipid melodrama.

arnie last action hero
Last Action Hero – 1993

In 1993, McTiernan reuinted with his Predator star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, for the action-comedy,  Last Action Hero.

Schwarzenegger starred as a fictional action movie hero in a Lethal Weapon-type franchise.  A little boy with a magic ticket is transported into his latest action movie.  Unfortunately for the little boy, it isn’t very good.

Last Action Hero was written by  Zak Penn and Adam Leff as a satire of movies like Lethal Weapon.  The original screenplay was appropriately titled Extremely Violent.  Penn described the research process for the script:

We rented every action movie we could think of and made a checklist. Does the second-most evil bad guy die before or after the most evil bad guy? Does the hero have a Vietnam buddy? It was fun, although watching Steven Seagal movies one after another can be soul-crushing.

Penn and Leff’s script was extremely popular and a bidding war ensued.  Columbia Pictures eventually shelled out $350,000 to purchase the script.  Even more surprising, the actor who inspired the main character was interested in starring in the movie.  According to Penn:

We never thought we’d actually get Arnold.  We were just two guys sitting in my apartment, thinking maybe someone would read it and get the reference. When we heard he wanted to do it, Adam and I looked at each other like, ‘This is insane.’

Last Action Hero - 1993
Last Action Hero – 1993

Once the studio signed Schwarzenegger to star, they wanted to rev up the action.  So they hired Shane Black, the writer of Lethal Weapon, to rewrite the script that was originally written as a satire of his movie.  Penn described the strange experience:

The irony is that we’d gone to the MPAA library and read all of Shane’s scripts.  We were big fans of his — he was the Elmore Leonard of action movies. So it was this surreal moment of, ‘We’re parodying this guy, and now he’s been hired to rewrite us.’ It was just a strange, strange occurrence.

Black and his co-writer, David Arnott, radically reworked the script and eventually received sole screenwriting credit.  Black responded to some of Penn’s comments about his re-writes:

Me and my partner, David Arnott, were to take this very small script, where not a lot happens, and beef it up into a summer movie, with a lot of set-ups and pay-offs and reversals. Zak seemed to think that we ruined his script, but I was actually quite fond of what we came up with. We had a silly gag where Slater reaches up, grabs a scratch on the film and stabs a villain with it. I know Columbia told us at the time that they were very happy with it. But then, abruptly, things changed.

Last Action Hero - 1993
Last Action Hero – 1993

The change Black is referring to was the hiring of McTiernan.  The director didn’t care for the new script so he set about making changes of his own.  This time it was Black’s turn to watch his work being altered:

McTiernan had made a lot of hits, so the studio said, ‘Let him do what he wants.’ And we watched as John rewrote the whole thing. I have a lot of fondness for John. He’s an interesting guy with a lot to say. He just wasn’t keen on the things we’d written.

Penn, who had long-since been sidelined on the project, wasn’t too thrilled about the choice of McTiernan either.

I like Shane and I like John McTiernan — I wouldn’t have watched all their movies so many times if I didn’t. But I do think it’s easier for someone from the outside to mock the conventions of action movies than it is for the people who created them in the first place.

Not surprisingly, the rewoked script was growing increasingly choppy.  At Schwarzenegger’s insistence, it was sent to legendary screen-writer William Goldman.  Goldman was paid a whopping one million dollars to do a four week rewrite on the script.  According to Black:

Back in those days, that kind of thing was an insurance policy for keeping your job at an executive level.  A script would be questionable and the trembling executive would give it to a famous writer with a million bucks, so he could say, ‘Yeah, it’s fortified now. We’ve given it vitamins. Wait, wait, wait… It needs the woman’s touch. Give it to Carrie Fisher!’ It just made people breathe easier, throwing money at this enormous behemoth. Even if the movie sucked, now they could say, ‘It’s not our fault.

It’s no coincidence that Black referenced Fisher as well.  The script was sent to several other script doctors including Goldman, Fisher and The Hunt For Red October’s Larry Ferguson.  Each made minor changes before cashing their checks and moving on to other projects.

Last Action Hero - 1993
Last Action Hero – 1993

As the studio kept throwing money at the script, tensions grew.  According to Black, McTiernan called him late one night and asked him to review the action sequences:

I declined.  We’d been fired and now they wanted us to fix up the explosions and helicopter scenes?  I considered it an insult to my professional pride.

Black, who went on to direct Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and Iron Man 3, actually appeared in a supporting role in Predator.  McTiernan hired the writer so that he could observe film-making first hand and learn how to direct.

McTiernan reflected on what went wrong on the big-budget box office bomb:

The whole thing would have profited from a little more digestion.  The movie, from the moment the studio said they wanted to do it until it was in the theaters, was nine-and-a-half months. Which was a month too short. In hindsight, we were arrogant, too.

Tempers flared when Columbia invited all the screenwriters to come back and visit the set.  McTiernan saw Black and Arnott visiting Schwarzenegger’s trailer and lost his temper.  He was convinced the writers were attempting to reassert control on the movie.  Penn, the original screen-writer, was hired to play a bit part in the movie.  McTiernan let him stay on the set but blocked the scene so that he would not actually appear on screen.

Last Action Hero
Last Action Hero – 1993

McTiernan, who was working 18-hour days to finish the film on time, described his frustration:

The head of the studio couldn’t decide whether this was an action movie or a kids’ movie.  I was getting pushed in a lot of directions. When I was sent the script, the thing I liked was that it was wildly irreverent. But that was all getting watered down. And we were just trying to get the damn thing finished.

Even O’Brien, the child actor who played the little boy, started picking up on the stress the director was under:

We’d built a New York skyline inside the studio and I was hanging from a gargoyle, wearing a harness. It was so tight that I literally couldn’t breathe, but I was too nervous to say anything and I passed out for a few seconds. People were cutting my clothes off and it got kind of scary. But I do remember McTiernan coming up afterwards and saying, ‘In situations like these, I don’t care what’s happening, you tell me and we’ll fix it. Don’t be afraid. You haven’t done anything wrong, but we cannot afford to stop shooting.’

According to McTiernan, the editing process was even worse than filming.  They only had three weeks to get the movie into theaters:

There are enormous sequences in the film that are literally how it came out of my camera. We cut the heads and tails off, and that’s the sequence; it wasn’t edited at all.

Not surprisingly, no one liked the movie.  After a disastrous test screening, Columbia decided to reshoot the ending.  Desperate, but not wanting to appear that way, the studio threw even more money into marketing.  They spent $750,000 on the trailer and an additional $500,000 to have the film’s name emblazoned on a NASA rocket.  True to the movie’s bad-luck streak, the launch was delayed until months after the movie’s release.  Next, 75-foot balloon of Schwarzenegger holding sticks of dynamite was erected in Times Square.  But that was considered in bad taste following the 1993 World Trade Center truck bombing and the balloon was quietly deflated.

Last Action Hero
Last Action Hero – 1993

But the botched promotion wasn’t the movie’s biggest problem.  It was facing stiff competition from Jurassic Park.  Many who worked on Last Action Hero including Schwarzenegger asked the studio to change the release date to move it away from Spielberg’s dinosaurs.  But the studio head refused.  McTiernan called it “sheer stupidity”:

I saw Jurassic Park that summer: it’s a fabulous movie. But the studio tried to set us against each other, which was an idiotic thing to do. Because we weren’t the greatest action movie of all time. We were never supposed to be.

Last Action Hero opened in second place behind Jurassic Park.  It only grossed $50 million in the US which was not enough to recover its production costs.  For Schwarzenegger, who was the biggest action star in the world, it was the first sign of vulnerability.  Thanks to worldwide grosses, it wasn’t the total disaster many make it out to be.  But it was certainly a disappointment.

Die Hard With a Vengeance - 1995
Die Hard With a Vengeance – 1995

In 1995, McTiernan rebounded by returning to the Die Hard franchise with the third movie, Die Hard With a Vengeance.

Bruce Willis returned as New York cop John McClane.  This time, he had a reluctant partner played by  Samuel L. Jackson.  The two are run ragged across New York City by a villain played by Jeremy Irons.

Before settling on a script, McTiernan considered a story that set the action on a boat.  That script went on to become the box office flop, Speed 2: Cruise Control aka Die Hard on a Boat.  Instead McTiernan and Fox settled on a script called Simon Says.  In the original screenplay, Jackson’s character was female.  Producer Joel Silver was interested in the script.  He intended to turn it into the fourth movie in the Lethal Weapon franchise.  But Fox refused to sell the script and instead turned it into a Die Hard movie.

Jonathan Hensleigh, the writer of Simon Says, was actually detained by the FBI after finishing the script.  They were concerned with how he knew so much about the Federal Gold Reserve in downtown Manhattan.  Hensleigh explained that he researched the script by reading an article in the New York Times.

Die Hard With a Vengeance - 1995
Die Hard With a Vengeance – 1995

Fox was hesitant about the scene in which Bruce Willis is forced to wear a sign with racial epitaphs.  The studio pushed for the scene’s removal but Hensleigh threatened to take his script to a rival studio.  So the scene stayed in.  McTiernan also added a sex scene between Iron and Sam Phillips.  McTiernan said he knew the movie would be rated R, so he might as well include a sex scene.

McTiernan had wanted to cast Sean Connery as the movie’s primary villain.  But Connery declined because he found the character “too diabolical”.

John McTiernan - 1995
John McTiernan – 1995

In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, McTiernan considered removing some of the movie’s more explosive scenes or pushing back the release date.  Ultimately, neither of those things happened.  But the ending was reshot after the studio disliked the original ending.

Die Hard With a Vengeance was the 10th highest grossing movie of 1995 and the biggest worldwide.   It outgrossed both of the previous Die Hard movies but garnered middling reviews. Praise was given to the special effects department, as well as Jackson. Despite this (commercial) success, Willis did not sign on for another entry in the franchise until 12 years later.

The Right to Remain Silent - 1996
The Right to Remain Silent – 1996

Following the commercial success of Die Hard With a Vengeance, McTiernan took a break from directing.  In 1996, he produced the TV movie, The Right to Remain Silent.

Lea Thompson played a rookie cop and Robert Loggia guided her through her first shift by telling stories of other unusual first shifts.  The cast included Patrick Dempsey, LL Cool J, Christopher Lloyd, Amanda Plummer, Carl Reiner and Judge Reinhold.

That same year, McTiernan produced the drama, Amanda.

Quicksilver Highway - 1997
Quicksilver Highway – 1997

In 1997, McTiernan produced the TV horror movie, Quicksilver Highway.

Christopher Lloyd played a traveling showman who tells two creepy stories.  One is an adaptation of a story by Clive Barker and the other is a Stephen King adaptation.

The 13th Warrior - 1999
The 13th Warrior – 1999

McTiernan returned to directing in 1999 with the mightily ambitious historical fiction epic, The 13th Warrior.

Based on the Michael Crichton novel Eaters of the Dead, the film starred Antonio Banderas as the Muslim explorer/sojourner Ahmad ibn Fadlan, sent to journey across Eastern lands to find Valhalla. He encounters many things before reaching a tribe tormented by mystic Nordic mythological werebears, essentially. Mysticism is a core theme of the film, as it sought to express the wonder of early mid-millenium exploration through magical realism.

The film’s production spiraled out of control after early test audiences reacted unfavorably. Crichton himself stepped in to direct reshoots, tussling with McTiernan over the film’s tone. Crichton wanted something more reflective and somber, while McTiernan wanted more rousing action. The uneasy mix of the two competing directions made for a generally muddled final product. While I confess to enjoying the film, this is mostly as I am a fan of the source novel, and a huge Antonion Banderas fan.

Critics, clearly not sharing in my predilections, saddled the movie with mostly negative reviews. Audiences steered clear, to where The 13th Warrior was at one point the most unprofitable film of all time, losing (with marketing) $135 million. Banderas, then playing Zorro, didn’t suffer a major blow, merely a ding, but McTiernan did. Even though he wasn’t in any position of power over the final cut. Luckily, he had one other 1999 release.

The Thomas Crown Affair - 1999
The Thomas Crown Affair – 1999

McTiernan once again turned to a previous collaborator, this time Pierce Brosnan, the then-reigning James Bond, for The Thomas Crown Affair. His star having exploded since Nomads, Brosnan starred alongside Rene Russo in the sleek, urbane heist film, a remake of a 1968 Steve McQueen-starring film. Brosnan played a very wealthy playboy art connoisseur, while Russo played an art insurance investigator.

The film was modestly budgeted at $48 million. This amount was nearly tripled, rendering the movie another nice success for McTierna, and a crucial success away from Bond for Brosnan. Critics thought highly of the film, for the most part.

Despite the success of The Thomas Crown Affair, the taste of the ill-fated The 13th Warrior was still on the tongues of Hollywood’s studios. McTiernan received another chance with Rollerball, but this was cleared a hired-gun posting for McTiernan, his trademark was nowhere to be found in the final product.

Rollerball - 2002
Rollerball – 2002

Starring Chris Klein from American Pie, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, and Rebecca Romijn, this action film was a remake of a 1970 sci-fi film. The remake and the original are both set in a mildly-dystopian future, where the sport of Rollerball is hugely popular. The game is a gorier version of hockey, in essence. As is often the case in such tales, a revolution is launched as the climax, and the frown of dystopia is turned upside-down.

The studio had zero faith in the film, dumping it in February like spoiled milk down the sink. At $70 million dollars budgeted, the movie had little chance of shocking the finance department and entering the black. Accountants were proven right when Rollerball barely made back a third of its production budget.

Critics weren’t kind: the film has a 3% on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert called it an “an incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense”, and Trevor Johnson of Time Out referred to it as “a checklist shaped by a 15-year-old”.

McTiernan wasn’t blamed for Rollerball and its dismal failure, which is of course positive but also indicated the state of his career. He was a gun-for-hire, no longer can pick and choose, much less develop projects of his own.

Basic - 2003
Basic – 2003

Next up for McTiernan, and, as of now, his epilogue, was Basic in 2003. It has been mentioned before on this site that Basic should actually be called Convoluted or Baffling given its constant shoveling of plot twists down audience throats. Re-teaming Pulp Fiction stars John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson seemed a good idea. Perhaps it would have been, given the right project. Basic wasn’t that project.

The movie underperformed at the box office, losing money. Critics weren’t kind, comparing the ending to a terrible shaggy-dog joke. Roger Ebert called Basic “not a film that could be understood”.

John McTiernan

Above is McTiernan, dressed proper in a suit. He was not headed to a movie studio or to a film shoot, he hasn’t done either since Basic. He was actually headed to a trial case, where he was convicted of perjury and sentenced to just-shy of one year in federal prison. His perjury conviction stems from his hiring of a PI to illegally wiretap one of his Rollerball producers. His legal troubles, coupled with his underhanded, shady actions taken against his employer, have greatly reduced his repute in Hollywood. Despite this, when McTiernan filed for bankruptcy in 2013 while incarcerated, he identified two upcoming film projects that were denoted as likely sources of future income.

So, what the hell happened?

By two films, McTiernan was a highly sought-after director. By three, he had transformed his primary genre decidedly. With his fourth, he solidified his status as a top-tier director. With his fifth, he stumbled trying to hem and haw between genres. On his sixth effort, McTiernan slipped and fell aways down the mountain. On seven, he returned to form by returning to the realm of a previous success. Number eight was a catastrophic bomb that knocked McTiernan off his pedestal. The ninth film was a much-needed success, but failed to outweigh the failure of number eight. His tenth attempt bombed horrifically. Number eleven had potential, but was another turkey. We are still awaiting number twelve.

John McTiernan, unlike many directors who have seen arching rises and falls in their careers, really isn’t an auteur. McTiernan was the top of a field of directors who, in a manner of speaking, didn’t really leave their signature at the bottom of the canvas. Sure, some themes are common in McTiernan’s oeuvre. But without a cinematic signature, a set of characteristics that identified a film as John McTiernan film, he was susceptible to misfires. Sure, responsibility is lessened this way, but authority is even more so, leaving you with little control over the development and final cut, but still much of the responsibility for the results. Now, suffering from legal troubles and financial woe, McTiernan seems unlikely to ascend to the top where he once rested.

5 1 vote
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

50 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
lebeau
Admin
8 years ago

First, let me formally welcome our newest contributor, oakleya77. He reached out and asked if he could take a crack at a WTHH article for the site. I think he’s done a fantastic job covering the rise and fall of director John McTiernan. When I agreed to run the article, I made sure to mention that I have become a little more protective of the series of late. That was my way of saying that I was going to utilize my editorial privilege. Which is another way of saying, “I’m sorry if I butchered your article”. Hopefully the changes I… Read more »

lebeau
Admin
8 years ago
Reply to  oakleya77

Most of the changes were formatting. Last Action Hero was the only major addition. I threw in the parts about the TV movies he produced because I was wondering myself what he did between Die Hard 3 and 13th Warrior. Plus I think it shows that he’s still in the game, but not at the top of his powers. But you had put in a lot of good work, so I was able to get this up and published in an afternoon. I’m a little sheepish about playing the part of editor. But we had some incidents last year that… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  oakleya77

The Nostalgia Critic’s Real Thoughts On: Last Action Hero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QvcgZS2Nv4

Never apologize! NEVER APOLOGIZE!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Last Action Hero: http://officialfan.proboards.com/thread/530309/last-action-hero?page=2 Post by eron on Sep 4, 2015 at 7:20pm The first two-thirds of the movie where the kid is in the movie world are absolutely brilliant. Brilliant, I say! I can’t say enough good things about that part of the movie… But then Arnold comes into the “real world” and it takes a serious nose dive. The pacing slows considerably. The Ripper character is introduced late in the picture and suddenly becomes the big bad, even though Charles Dance’s character had already been established as the big bad. The real world is established as operating under… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Awesomely Crappy Movies: Last Action Hero http://www.enuffa.com/2015/09/awesomely-shitty-movies-last-action-hero.html Today it’s the 1993 Arnold Schwarzenegger flop, Last Action Hero! Released just a week after the mega-blockbuster Jurassic Park, LAH didn’t stand a chance at the box office and it predictably died a quick death. Last Action Hero tells the story of Danny Madigan, a 12-year-old boy obsessed with Schwarzenegger movies, specifically his fictitious Jack Slater series. Danny frequently cuts school to visit a nearby run-down theater, owned by his elderly friend Nick. One night Nick invites Danny to a private midnight screening of Jack Slater IV, and gives him an old-timey movie… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

19 Ambitious Movies That Didn’t Go as Planned http://www.denofgeek.com/us/movies/movies/261820/19-ambitious-movies-that-didnt-go-as-planned Last Action Hero (1993) Zak Penn, writer of the first Avengers draft, came up with a script with Adam Leff, which was essentially Scream for action movies. Their script – called Extremely Violent at this stage – started a bidding war that attracted Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie was concerned that the script was too violent (let that sink in for a second) but liked the concept. Penn and Leff’s screenplay was redrafted by Shane Black and David Arnott, which Penn disliked but Columbia Pictures were happy with. Then John McTiernan – who… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)
Reply to  lebeau

Is it accurate to say that on his best days, John McTiernan is one of those ‘workmanlike in a good way’ directors? He’s functional but not flashy.

Leo
Leo
8 years ago

Hello oakleya77, I really enjoyed the article you posted up about McTiernan. I hope you do one on another director sometime throughout almost the rest of the year.

Elliott
Elliott
8 years ago

Long time reader, First time to comment. I wonder what Mctiernan thought about Die Hard 2. Great article! I learned alot about the painful process of making Last action hero.

lebeau
Admin
8 years ago
Reply to  Elliott

Welcome to the comments section. So glad you decided to jump in. Hope it won’t be the last time.

I didn’t see anywhere where McTiernan commented on Harlin’s Die Hard 2. I suspect he’s pretty ambivalent about it. When it came out, he was moving on to bigger and better things. So I doubt he even considered taking the job himself.

Zella
Zella
8 years ago

Nice work, oakleya77! I knew McTiernan because of Predator and Last Action Hero and was vaguely aware that he had spent some time in jail, but I wasn’t familiar with the rest of his career. I enjoyed your write-up!

Also, thanks so much for including my favorite on-set photo from Predator: armless Carl Weathers and costumed JCVD. That picture never fails to make me laugh. 😛

Carl
Carl
8 years ago

Nice article! Outside of the really big names (Speilberg, Lucas, Tarantino, etc.), I wasn’t that aware of directors and how strongly they influence a film until maybe the last 10 years or so. So I’d never heard of McTiernan until now despite really liking several of his films. Thanks for enlightening me!

Also, “It was fun, although watching Steven Seagal movies one after another can be soul-crushing.” made my day!

lebeau
Admin
8 years ago
Reply to  Carl

The Seagal quip was from Zak Penn. While understandably disappointed about what happened to his movie, he seems to have had a real sense of humor about the whole experience. That’s part of why he is quoted so heavily in the article. One of my favorite Penn quotes that I actually left out was around trying to get the studio to move the release date. He told the studio that he came up with the idea for Last Action Hero and even he would rather watch Jurassic Park.

admin
Admin
admin
8 years ago

Excellent article, a real breeze to read. I’d also like to point out that I think that the black & white photo of John McTiernan from 1995 makes him look like he could be Pierce Brosnan’s dad.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Vikings fight cavemen in one of Hollywood’s biggest flops: http://www.avclub.com/article/vikings-fight-cavemen-one-hollywoods-biggest-flops-219101 The 13th Warrior (1999) Before The 13th Warrior, there was Eaters Of The Dead: a mucky, rainy Viking adventure, directed by John McTiernan and based on a novel by Michael Crichton, king of the bestsellers. The book, first published in 1976, marked one of the few times that Crichton demonstrated anything like literary ambition. It was a revisionist take of Beowulf, presented as an account written by the real-life 10th-century Arab diplomat Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, complete with notes and footnotes from a fictional translator. In the mid-1990s, when Michael Crichton… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

The CineFiles Podcast: Episode 12: http://thisisinfamous.com/cinefiles-podcast-12/ Eric Cohen May 14, 2015 Podcasts, The CineFiles Podcast In Episode 12 of The CineFiles Podcast we discuss the rise of Hispanic film makers such as Robert Rodriguez, Guillermo Del Toro, Alex De Iglesia, Nacho Vigolando and Alfonse Cauron among many others. Whether they hail from Mexico, Spain, Chile or Argentina… they’re leading the charge of the Latino auteur. But first, we review the films we’ve recently seen: THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, THE LONGEST DAY, WILD CARD, the Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie flick MAGGIE, both versions of THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY, THE OVERNIGHT… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

13 Reasons ‘Die Hard With A Vengeance’ Is The Only ‘Die Hard’ You Need: http://www.mtv.com/news/2164109/die-hard-with-a-vengeance-anniversary/ by Kat Rosenfield 5/19/2015 Twenty years ago, after two blockbuster movies and a five-year wait, the “Die Hard” franchise roared back into theaters with the explosive “Die Hard with a Vengeance.” The movie was released on May 19, 1995, and it was an instant classic, thanks to a smart script, exciting plot, and the absolutely stellar chemistry between Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. But not only was “Die Hard with a Vengeance” a great movie, it was also arguably the best of its kind:… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eow7oDGCHwI

Oliver, Richard and Duncan discuss DIE HARD.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

‘Die Hard’ May Have Never Happened If A Screenwriter Hadn’t Almost Been Hit By A Fridge

http://uproxx.com/movies/die-hard-oral-history-brian-abrams/

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Fascinating Backstories Behind Famous Movies http://whatculture.com/film/10-fascinating-backstories-behind-famous-movies?page=4 Die Hard With A Vengeance Was Very Nearly Lethal Weapon 4 Have you ever sat down to the third John McClane outing, Die Hard With A Vengeance, and thought to yourself, “Hey, Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson have really got a Riggs/Murtaugh/Lethal Weapon thing going on here”? You wouldn’t be the first to make such a comparison. There’s a good reason for it, too, because Die Hard With A Vengeance was originally envisioned as a potential Lethal Weapon 4, long before Lethal Weapon 4 was about Mel Gibson and Danny Glover trying… Read more »

Matt Rouge
Matt Rouge
8 years ago

Really great post, would not have thought this was your first!

The only problem I had was your treatment of one of my favorite movies, “Rollerball” (1975!). I absolutely would not call the world therein a “mild dystopia.” It’s not hellish, but I think it realistically portrays a world of vast manipulation and greatly diminished expectations for meaning.

Lebeau and I talked about it recently. 🙂

BTW, oddly, I didn’t find the remake to be nearly as terrible as people said it was going to be. It was just mediocre with some decent scenes here and there.

Matt Rouge
Matt Rouge
8 years ago

Also, I knew nothing about this director and felt I got a very good picture of his career in one go. Very educational!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Schwarzenegger: Studio messed up Predator sequels: http://www.denofgeek.us/movies/predator/247570/schwarzenegger-studio-messed-up-predator-sequels Arnold Schwarzenegger claims that no Predator sequel “has been satisfactory to the audience.” Terminator Genisys continues its global roll out with $135 million banked worldwide so far and counting. Arnold Schwarzenegger, meanwhile, continues to do his bit to promote the film, and as part of that, he’s taken part in a Q&A session for Reddit. And there, the subject of the Predator sequels came up. Writer and director Shane Black – who, of course, had a role in the original film – is working on a new Predator sequel. And asked whether he… Read more »

Matt Rouge
Matt Rouge
8 years ago

“Batman and Robin” star, LOL!

admin
Admin
admin
8 years ago
Reply to  Matt Rouge

Yeah, a better film could’ve been referenced (besides, I don’t think anyone STARRED in “Batman & Robin”:-).

Matt Rouge
Matt Rouge
8 years ago
Reply to  admin

I assumed the writer referenced it as a kind of dig. 🙂

admin
Admin
admin
8 years ago
Reply to  Matt Rouge

That’s very likely, since Schwarzenegger is discussing studios creating sequels for greed before the writer’s reference.

Matt Rouge
Matt Rouge
8 years ago
Reply to  admin

Makes sense!

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/thecinefiles/permalink/10153691905100795/

The death of Alan Rickman has me thinking of my favorite role as Hans Gruber, what I still consider the watermark of action films!

This has me thinking of DIE HARD director John McTiernan. Now here’s a guy that has a pretty impressive resume.

admin
Admin
admin
8 years ago

Alan Rickman passed away? Bummer. I really liked him in “Dogma” amongst other roles in which he’s probably remembered more for.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

10 Box Office Flops Much Better Than Their Reputations http://whatculture.com/film/10-box-office-flops-much-better-than-their-reputations.php/8 The 13th Warrior Budget: $160 million Worldwide Gross: $61.7 million Delayed for more than a year due to poor responses from test screenings, The 13th Warrior had a lot of people, including some of the actors involved, weary of its final product. But even after numerous re-shoots and edits, this movie came out the other end like a more polished version of Conan the Barbarian. And…why is that somehow a bad thing? Indeed, one of the biggest criticisms lobbed against the Antonio Banderas medieval action thriller, is that it seems… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Directors fired during filming http://www.looper.com/73841/directors-fired-filming/ John McTiernan (The 13th Warrior) When John McTiernan started working on The 13th Warrior, it was still called Eaters of the Dead—the same name as the Michael Crichton novel on which it was based. The expensive film had a set release date and even a teaser trailer when it was screened for early test audiences…whose reactions were overwhelmingly negative. This led to the studio firing McTiernan and replacing him with Crichton, whose lack of film experience would come back to bite the studio when he conducted major reshoots in what became a hugely expensive and long-delayed production.… Read more »

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

John McTiernan talks directing Die Hard 6, Expendables 4, Conan 3. https://t.co/JsQIeWPM7G

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

‘Die Hard’ Director John McTiernan Ratchets Up War Against Bank That Kicked Him Out of His Home

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/die-hard-director-john-mctiernan-888442

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Earwolf Forums → Earwolf Productions → How Did This Get Made? → Bad Movie Recommendations → Rollerball (2002)

http://forum.earwolf.com/topic/3472-rollerball-2002/

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Directors Chewed Up by The Machine

http://www.chud.com/community/t/159470/directors-chewed-up-by-the-machine#post_4319958

There’s way more to it than the film alone, but ROLLERBALL certainly seems to have f***ed up John McTiernan’s trajectory.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

Speaking of “Die Hard” movie directors:
http://www.chud.com/community/t/159470/directors-chewed-up-by-the-machine/50#post_4320097

Harlin peaked with A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, when he was young and hungry and managed to inject enough life and inventive imagery into an unfinished script to make something kind of amazing in its sheer 80s kinetic radness. It doesn’t seem like it took him very long afterward to become the Finnish Brett Ratner. There are few things more damning than being the guy the studio approaches to re-do an Exorcist prequel that wasn’t mainstream enough for the execs’ comfort.

He seems like a cool dude to hang with, though.

Terrence Clay (@TMC1982)

14 Directors Who Desperately Need A Hit Movie http://whatculture.com/film/14-directors-who-desperately-need-a-hit-movie?page=4 John McTiernan With all of the talk of directors landing themselves in “movie jail” due to financially unsuccessful movies, here’s a director who actually went to real jail, for his part in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal. A now-bankrupt McTiernan, director of such action movie classics as Predator, Die Hard, Last Action Hero and Die Hard with a Vengeance, was released from prison in 2014, and hasn’t directed a single feature film since 2003’s critical and commercial dud Basic. This came just a year after McTiernan’s big-budget bomb Rollerball, which combined… Read more »

Leo
Leo
7 years ago

McTiernan on WatchMojo’s Top 10 Action Movie Directors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KytjfEV9hcE

50
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x