By He directed some of the strongest action films of the 1980s and 1990s, and now John McTiernan has spoken about how he has given up on directing movies.
The helmer broke through with his second film, 1987’s “Predator” which then led to 1988’s “Die Hard” and 1990’s “The Hunt for Red October” – all three revered as great studio films.
In the 1990s he put out some bangers too with “Die Hard with a Vengeance,” “The Thomas Crown Affair” remake, “Medicine Man,” “Last Action Hero” and “The 13th Warrior”.
In an interview with Toiso (via WoR), McTiernan says that the failures of his last two films – 2002’s “Rollerball” and 2003’s “Basic” – have convinced him to never get involved with directing again. Instead, he now says he’ll stick to being just a script doctor and will help other filmmakers get their film’s script into fighting shape:
“That’s a lifetime decision. I don’t want to do this [directing] anymore. I’m perfectly content with fixing your bad script. I’m going to try to fix your bad script.
It was an appalling experience [working on “Rollerball” and “Basic”] I just didn’t want to make movies again. I don’t want to make bad movies. I don’t want to work with a–holes that don’t give a s— about movies and don’t know anything about it, but somehow are in charge of it.
Much of what I’ve done since then is as a script doctor. I fix other people’s bad scripts, and I don’t put my name on it. “
This marks a change from his stance back in April when he suggested he was working on three new scripts and he hoped to direct several more films “before I die.” It’s not clear what happened in the months since then.
After both “Rollerball” and “Basic” were major flops, McTiernan faced real life legal troubles and bankruptcy along with being shunned by Hollywood. He still reportedly gets offers to direct but nothing has interested him.
His last directorial effort was the short film “The Red Dot,” a promo spot for the Ubisoft video game “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands”.
The post John McTiernan Retires From Directing? appeared first on Dark Horizons.
