You could know John McTiernan because the director of such beloved motion film classics as 1988’s Die Laborious and the thrilling sci-fi film Predator from the earlier 12 months. Nevertheless, did you additionally know concerning the filmmaker’s extra notorious repute as a convicted legal?
Don’t fear. It’s not like he tried to steal from an L.A. skyscraper by orchestrating a lethal hostage state of affairs on Christmas Eve or something like that. But, he was discovered responsible of some fairly shady exercise that not solely prompted him to be ostracized from Hollywood but in addition from society as an incarcerated particular person for some time. So, what may the considerably forgotten director of the ‘80s hits listed above have achieved to wind up on this state of affairs? Effectively, it really entails a film that the majority would agree is definitely not value going to jail for.
The Story Begins With A Film Known as Rollerball
Years after hitting it large together with his aforementioned action-packed favorites, John McTiernan signed on to helm a reimagining of director Norman Jewison’s 1975 dystopian sports activities thriller, Rollerball. Primarily based on a brief story by William Harrison, the movie stars James Caan because the star participant of the eponymous athletic occasion – a brutal, and typically even lethal, sport that mixes components of curler derby, hockey, and motocross – who uncovers a conspiracy in an oppressive future during which all features of society are managed by companies.
McTiernan’s 2002 model, starring Chris Klein, LL Cool J, and Rebecca Romijin, is broadly considered one of many worst cinematic remakes ever made, having earned a tragic 3% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics condemning its incoherent modifying, a storyline that lacks focus, and an entire ignorance of the unique movie’s fascinating satirical components. It was not a success on the field workplace both, raking in roughly $25.9 million worldwide on a price range of $70 million, in line with Field Workplace Mojo.
This might have simply been thought of a mere smudge on the filmography of McTiernan, who adopted it up the subsequent 12 months with a film about navy coaching known as Primary, and that may have been the tip of the story. Nevertheless, only a few years later, new scandalous info associated to Rollerball got here to gentle.
John McTiernan Employed A Personal Eye To Wiretap The Rollerball Producer’s Cellphone Conversations
As a 2013 report by The Guardian recollects, John McTiernan had a dispute with Rollerball’s producer, Charles Roven, over how the movie must be made. The filmmaker apparently took these disagreements to coronary heart and, allegedly, determined to go to illegal measures to do one thing about it.
In 2000, he reportedly employed a personal investigator and infamous Hollywood fixer named Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Roven’s conversations to search out cases the place Roven made adverse remarks concerning the studio executives or stated issues to others that have been inconsistent with what he stated to the studio, as detailed within the trial data. Simply six years later, a federal investigation into the matter passed off. Nevertheless, it was not the unlawful wiretapping per se that compelled McTiernan to look in court docket.
John McTiernan Was Charged With Mendacity About The Wiretapping
In accordance with Selection, in February 2006, the FBI questioned John McTiernan about hiring Anthony Pellicano to wiretap Charles Roven’s cellphone conversations, and he replied that he had no data of the state of affairs. Nevertheless, the FBI uncovered a dialog between him and Pellicano discussing the wiretapping task, which the non-public investigator had recorded himself. Thus, the filmmaker was subsequently charged with making false statements to a federal investigator the next April.
Seven years later, he finally surrendered to a 12-month sentence. On April 3, 2013, he was despatched to the minimum-security Federal Jail Camp in Yankton, South Dakota, and, throughout his keep, acquired help from Hollywood stars like Samuel L. Jackson, whom he labored with on Die Laborious with a Vengeance in 1995 and Primary, and Alec Baldwin, who performed Jack Ryan in 1990’s The Hunt for Purple October, which McTiernan additionally helmed. In accordance with the BBC, McTiernan can be launched from the power the next February and was ordered to serve the rest of his sentence beneath home arrest at his Wyoming residence.
What Is John McTiernan Doing Now?
It has been greater than a decade since John McTiernan was launched from Federal custody, but he has nonetheless not helmed one other movie since Primary. Effectively, so far as I’m involved, if Academy Award winner and Marvel film star Robert Downey Jr. can serve 15 months in jail solely to come back again with “the best second act ever,” as his buddy Anthony Michael Corridor has described it, so can the director of one of the beloved Christmas films ever made (and, sure, I’m speaking about Die Laborious, whether or not or not you agree it’s a vacation traditional).
McTiernan advised Empire in 2014 that, whereas serving his jail sentence, he penned a possible sequel to his 1999 model of The Thomas Crown Affair, however that has but to see the sunshine of day. He additionally had plans to make a sci-fi epic known as Taut Ceci Foxtrot with Academy Award nominees Uma Thurman and Laurence Fishburne, however, in late 2020, the filmmaker advised Empire (through SyFy) that circumstances associated to COVID stalled the challenge earlier than it was finally scrapped two years later, in line with Filmofilia. In March 2025, he shared with Forbes that he has three or 4 concepts for a brand new directorial effort in thoughts, however can’t say for positive if or when the now 74-year-old will make them.
Following John McTiernan’s authorized troubles and John McClane actor Bruce Willis’ latest retirement in 2022 attributable to his analysis of frontotemporal dementia, the Die Laborious films appear to have taken on an nearly bittersweet repute. All in all, I’ve all the time admired McTiernan as an artist, particularly when you think about how the unique Die Laborious was nonetheless being written as principal pictures was going down – there was an excellent argument about McClane’s signature catchphrase – and, but, he managed to whip it right into a bona fide traditional with a only some issues that don’t make quite a lot of sense. I hope to see him return ultimately with one thing that blows us to the again of the theater as soon as once more.