After serving 12 months in prison due to his involvement in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal – in which he lied to an FBI agent about his history with Pellicano – Die Hard helmer John McTiernan is finally ready to jump back into filmmaking. Though the bankrupt director is still struggling to recover from the prison stint, word is that his DEA thriller Red Squad is gearing up to shoot soon, with Nicolas Cage attached to star.
Apparently, McTiernan is under the gun to get moving on Red Squad and other projects, so that he can fight foreclosure on his ranch by proving in an evidentiary hearing on July 8th that he’ll soon be able to pay off bank loans with money from directing. In the film, Cage will play “a former DEA agent with a rogue streak.” The story focuses on the agent and his select team of mercenaries, who take on a Mexican drug cartel in a dangerous border town.
Cam Cannon and Jorge Suarez wrote the script for Red Squad. Neither have any big films under their belts, though both individuals have been involved with some small projects. Cannon served as an executive producer on the Nicolas Cage action thriller Rage and as an associate producer on the upcoming Bruce Willis actioner The Prince. He also penned horror flick A Haunting at Silver Falls. For his part, Suarez wrote and directed an action film called The Scratch, in addition to a few shorts.
I’m hopeful that McTiernan is successful in relaunching his career with Red Squad. The director was, in his prime, one of Hollywood’s heavy hitters, with such films as Predator, Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, Last Action Hero and The Thomas Crown Affair on his resume. It’s a real shame that he got caught up in the Pellicano scandal and taken out of the business so completely for a while. Perhaps Cage will prove to be the right actor to reintroduce McTiernan to the masses?
