John McTiernan is responsible for two of the best suspense-filled action movies from the 80s, the Christmas favorite Die Hard and the Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi classic Predator. Since then, his career has been hit-or-miss with films like Hunt for the Red October (which starred Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, a character who has gone on to be played by Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, Chris Pine, and John Krasinski), Last Action Hero, Basic, The 13th Warrior, and the remake of the James Caan film Rollerball. After Basic, McTiernan had been convicted of lying to the FBI over his hiring of private investigator Anthony Pellicano to illegally wiretap the phone calls of two people, including producer Charles Roven, who had been involved in his previous project, Rollerball. McTiernan would go to jail in 2013 but then serve the rest of his sentence in 2014 under house arrest and eventually declared bankruptcy.
After 20 years of being out of the public eye, the prolific director is ready to get back to directing movies, and he’s already got a film lined up. According to World of Reel, McTiernan is set to direct a film called Taut Ceci Foxtrot, which will star Uma Thurman and Laurence Fishburne. The plot centers around “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.”
The film is set to start production in Paris this fall and has had the above concept art posted on social media by a friend of McTiernan. McTiernan had been working on preparing his new comeback project for a few years now and was unable to get it started due to COVID delays. However, the famed director has now been able to get production going with restrictions being lifted, and the movie will be pushing through.
McTiernan’s last film was 2003’s Basic which reunited John Travolta with his Pulp Fiction co-star, Samuel L. Jackson. That film and his previous 2002’s Rollerball were both critically panned and flopped. McTiernan had not worked since, however, the director has amassed a cult fandom due to his successes of the past, who would no doubt love to see him mount a big return and be graced with future projects from the filmmaker of such coveted 80s classics.
Now it’s time to have an at-home John McTiernan film festival to celebrate this news.