The Undisputed 

Predator, The Hunt For Red October, Die Hard, The Thomas Crown Affair, Die Hard With A Vengeance.  Let’s just face facts, John McTiernan is goddamn action movie royalty!  With a resume like that where the hell has he been?

Jail and bankruptcy court, unfortunately.  During his disastrous Rollerball remake there were massive disagreements due to studio interference, chiefly from producer Charles Roven.  McTiernan hired a private investigator to discover Roven’s intentions.  

He also used this investigator to illegally wiretap his ex-wife, then lied about it to the court.  He was charged with perjury and jailed.  Subsequent lawsuits forced him into bankruptcy. 

Locking horns with as powerful a producer as Roven in such a public spectacle meant McTiernan was sent to join Mel “Sugar Tits” Gibson in Hollywood Purgatory for a while.

Given Roven’s track record includes Rollerball, Batman v Superman and Justice League, while McTiernan’s is as discussed, it is fairly safe to say that Roven should have been the one in Hollywood Purgatory for sheer incompetence.

Shut Up And Take My Money!

Well, now he’s back.  The King has returned and here’s hoping he is going to show some of this substandard whipper-snappers how the big dogs roll.

He has signed up Uma Thurman and Vikings Travis Fimmel to star in the sci-fi action thriller Tau Ceti 4.

 
The story will transport us to the war-torn fourth planet in the remote Tau Ceti solar system.  Three heavily armed strangers show up, take one look at the oligarchs, thugs and warlords who think they run the place, and decide to kill every last one of them.
 

McTiernan will direct his own screenplay.  Gail Sistrunk, Anthony Katagas, and Thurman join him as co-producers.  The project is being sold at this year’s Cannes film market.

Shall we have a whip-round and buy this motherfucker?

He’s back baby!  McTiernan is back!