John McTiernan Directing Red Squad

[Blu Ian]

John McTiernan Directing Red Squad

11 years since his last film. He's back.

And now he can also direct the next Die Hard, end the series on a high note at least.

Shooting will begin in April after he is released.

It's a full decade since Die Hard and Predator director John McTiernan has had a film in production. Protracted legal shenanigans and a twelve-month jail sentence stemming from the Anthony Pellicano wire-tapping scandal enforced his disappearance from the Hollywood radar. But with all that finally behind him, he's about to make his comeback. Variety reports that McTiernan has signed up to helm the action thriller Red Squad. Production company Hannibal Classics (along with Patriot Pictures) is putting up the money, and Hannibal's Cam Cannon wrote the screenplay and will produce.

If you don't know the details and wondered where he'd gone, McTiernan was basically collateral damage in the Anthony Pellicano affair. Pellicano was a private investigator and expert in "forensic surveillance", much used in Hollywood circles, particularly in divorce settlements and the like. A chance discovery by the FBI discovered years worth of illegal phone-tapping, and Pellicano was prosecuted for recording the conversations of people in litigation, in order to provide unfair advantage to a particular side in a case.

There was never any suggestion that any of the huge list of big names with whom Pellicano crossed paths were in any way complicit in his dodgy schemes, but McTiernan's foolish mistake was to fib to the FBI. He hired Pellicano while in a dispute with producer Charles Roven during the production of Rollerball in 2000, but denied having done so when the FBI asked him about it. In a saga peripheral to the main Pellicano case, he was charged and sentenced for lying to a federal officer.

Red Squad, per the synopsis we have so far, involves a former DEA agent who went rogue and now runs a team of mercenaries. Their latest mission takes them to Mexico, where they've been hired to "neutralise" a drug lord.

A pretty generic action scenario then, but McTiernan has worked magic on similar material in the past. Immediately prior to his unfortunate career hiatus, he'd seemed off his game, with the uninspiring Rollerball and Basic, and the troubled and compromised The Thirteenth Warrior. Fingers crossed that Red Squad is a return to form as well as a return to film. Shooting is set to begin almost immediately on McTiernan's release from prison in April.

[Col. Zombie]

Great news!! I sure have missed McTiernan and can't wait to see how his new venture forms up. Hopefully, it will be a hit.

[cinemaphile]

Originally Posted by Blu Ian

John McTiernan Directing Red Squad

11 years since his last film. He's back.

And now he can also direct the next Die Hard, end the series on a high note at least.

This is the only part I care about! Please please please let it happen!
(I also wouldn't mind seeing the long-rumored Thomas Crowne sequel. I loved that flick)

[Foggy]

Please don't end up being a Bullet to the Head fiasco...

[tigertron]

After this I hope he does Die Hard 6 and have John McClane die or something so we don't have another awful sequel.

[Shawn Elestren]

Originally Posted by tigertron

After this I hope he does Die Hard 6 and have John McClane die or something so we don't have another awful sequel.

I'd rather he just move forward and look to new projects than looking to the past.

[Packerfan75]

One of my favorite directors. Few have a feel for action films like he does. Big, loud and fun!

[Hardkore]

I thought he was getting out soon. Good news indeed. Whether or not he does another Die Hard,I am looking forward to anything he does.

[tigertron]

Originally Posted by Shawn Watson

I'd rather he just move forward and look to new projects than looking to the past.

I just want them to right the wrongs of the Die Hard series and McTiernan is the man to do it seeing as how the first and third films are the best in the series, though I did like 4.0.

[DoubleDownAgain]

[Shawn Elestren]

Originally Posted by tigertron

I just want them to right the wrongs of the Die Hard series and McTiernan is the man to do it seeing as how the first and third films are the best in the series, though I did like 4.0.

Bruce Willis does not give a ****. And no amount of McTiernan can fix that.

BW is just an arrogant, lazy, diva *******, and has very few fans left. He's not a box office draw anymore, and the DH brand name has been ruined.

Forward. Not backward.

[SammymeBlu]

Predator 3: Dutch Returns

That is all

[EricJ]

Originally Posted by cinemaphile

(I also wouldn't mind seeing the long-rumored Thomas Crowne sequel. I loved that flick)

McTiernan's Thomas Crown sequel was going to be a Topkapi remake, with Brosnan in the Maximilian Schell role.
Wouldn't mind seeing it either, but wonder if Brosnan's too old or disinterested in action movies by this point to do it.

And JMT's time-out seems to have gotten him off that inexplicable craze for remaking all of buddy Norman Jewison's films (he admitted it) that gave us Crown and Rollerball, that turned him "off his game", but now I'm wondering if he actually knows how to get back on it again.

[tigertron]

Originally Posted by Shawn Watson

Bruce Willis does not give a ****. And no amount of McTiernan can fix that.

BW is just an arrogant, lazy, diva *******, and has very few fans left. He's not a box office draw anymore, and the DH brand name has been ruined.

Forward. Not backward.

I agree, Bruce Willis has become a lazy diva and his last great film was Die Hard 4.0.

With the right director, script and a kick up the back side I think die Hard 6 could be a redemption for the series after the mess that's called 'a Good Day'.

[Foggy]

Err, dudes, Moonrise Kingdom? Looper?

He's not a complete paycheck collecting prick, he's just done some prick-ish things in the last year.

[tigertron]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Err, dudes, Moonrise Kingdom? Looper?

He's not a complete paycheck collecting prick, he's just done some prick-ish things in the last year.

I forgot about Looper, which I need to get round to watching, so I retract what I said, but 4.0 is the last great film that I've currently seen. His other films like Copout were atrocious.

[Blu Ian]

I wish Bruce would do more comedy, he was hilarious in The Whole Nine Yards.

[klauswhereareyou]

Originally Posted by Blu Ian

I wish Bruce would do more comedy, he was hilarious in The Whole Nine Yards.

And his 5 season run on Moonlighting.

[Shawn Elestren]

Originally Posted by Foggy

Err, dudes, Moonrise Kingdom? Looper?

He's not a complete paycheck collecting prick, he's just done some prick-ish things in the last year.

Foggy, can you change your name to "Man who contradicts everyone because he always knows better."

[Shawn Elestren]

Originally Posted by tigertron

I forgot about Looper, which I need to get round to watching, so I retract what I said, but 4.0 is the last great film that I've currently seen. His other films like Copout were atrocious.

He's really looking his age now. Worse, in fact. He's got nothing left. I've completely written-off BW.