John McTiernan was once the king of the Hollywood action blockbuster. The director earned a reputation for making some of the best big screen spectacles of his day, with “Predator,” “Die Hard,” “The Hunt For Red October,” and “Die Hard With A Vengeance” all to his name. However, he hit a major bump in the road in the early 2000s with two major flops — “Rollerball” and “Basic” — failures that were compounded with legal and financial trouble that has essentially curtailed his career since. But as an Academy member, he still sees pretty much everything, and what Hollywood has to offer these days hardly impresses him.
In an interview with Premiere (en Francais, and Google translated), the director had tough words for one of the most acclaimed films of last year, George Miller‘s “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The picture was praised for its intense, astoundingly choreographed action scenes, but McTiernan was hardly moved.
“Pffff … corporate product,” he scoffed, though he added that he liked the first “Mad Max” and “Babe.”
As for the current churn of comic book movies coming out of Hollywood, again, McTiernan is not a fan. “…these are films made by fascists,” he stated, adding: “Comic book heroes are for businesses.”
“Captain America…The cult of American hyper-masculinity is one of the worst things that has happened in the world during the last fifty years. Hundreds of thousands of people died because of this stupid illusion. So how is it possible to watch a movie called Captain America?” he added.
However, just to be clear, McTiernan isn’t a total crank about everything in Hollywood, saying that Joel Silver (who produced “Predator” and “Die Hard”) “will always produce real action movies.” And weirdly enough, the director is a huge fan of Ben Affleck‘s “Argo.”
“He did something incredible. And he was a better actor than in all his other films. Normally when a filmmaker gets to the screen, it’s the opposite. He put aside his ego, he began to act like a hero in a John Ford film… And it’s very different from his other roles. There is something about him that a lot of people find annoying. This arrogance, coldness… It disappeared in this film,” he said.
By this point, you might be asking why doesn’t McTiernan put his money where his mouth is and go make another movie? Well, that’s the plan. It will apparently be a female led action movie, shot in Europe, with minimal dialogue, making it easy to produce both English and French language versions (the film is being backed by a French producer). And according to Ouest France, the story will revolve around an orphaned child and a woman, with McTiernan dreamcasting Cate Blanchett for the lead.
The script is ready, but the project isn’t a go just yet. So until cameras roll, McTiernan will have plenty of screeners to watch, and likely plenty of opinions to go along with them.
