John McTiernan‘s last great movie was 1999’s THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR. The sexy heist thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo serves as one of the rare remakes that works. McTiernan only directed two films afterwards (ROLLERBALL and BASIC) before he was sent to prison following an almost decade long legal battle. Now out of jail, McTiernan is back and able to direct and already has some projects under consideration. One of those may actually be a sequel to THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR which he penned while incarcerated.
As part of his first interview after leaving Yanktown Prison, John “Mac Daddy” McTiernan shared the plot for the sequel, THOMAS CROWN AND THE MISSING LIONESS, with Empire.
“Nebuchadnezzar had two lion statues commissioned in 1100BC: a male and a female,” explained McTiernan of the title’s provenance. “Alexander the Great took them when he conquered Persia. Mark Antony had them taken to Rome. Constantine moved them to Constantinople. And at some point the lioness went missing. The movie is about what happens when it turns up at an auction. By the way, it’s all bullshit; none of that ever happened.”
While the title sounds like an INDIANA JONES rip-off, the plot does sound intriguing as does the pairing of Brosnan and Russo for a second time. While both actors could appear in a 15 year later sequel, McTiernan gave no indication if there is studio interest or not. He simply says it is a lot of fun and would love to make it.
McTiernan has been named as a fan favorite to helm a fourth EXPENDABLES movie, a PREDATOR reboot, and is actually linked with the Nicolas Cage/Colin Farrell DEA flick RED SQUAD which “involves a former DEA agent (presumably Cage, should he sign on) who has gone rogue and runs a team of mercenaries. Their latest mission takes them to Mexico, to take out a drug lord.” Here’s hoping the 63 year old director gets to make all of them.