Why the Director of Die Hard and Predator disappeared for 20 Years — John McTiernan

Predator: The often imitated never bettered pinnacle of the monster movie sci-fi, horror, action hybrid.

Die Hard: hailed by many as one of if not the single greatest action film ever made.

One might think the man who made these two stone-cold classics — back-to-back near the start of his career no less — should have led a long and illustrious career into old age, but director John McTiernan’s filmography is far smaller than a genre-defining filmmaker of his pedigree could be expected to put out in the 36 years since his career began.

McTiernan is not an instance of a meticulous filmmaker taking his time to finely craft each of his films over the course of several years. Instead, he was rather on the opposite end of the spectrum, working fast and usually putting out a new movie every year or two with films like The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero, the Thomas Crown Affair remake, and a return to the Die Hard series in Die Hard With a Vengeance all to his name. But after 2003’s Basic, McTiernan dropped off the map. For the past 20 years, he has largely been missing in action. So, let’s talk about why.

Sometimes a successful filmmaking career can be devasted by one bad movie. Though Basic was something of a box office…