14 Directors Who Desperately Need A Hit Movie

12. John McTiernan

With all of the talk of directors landing themselves in "movie jail" due to financially unsuccessful movies, here's a director who actually went to real jail, for his part in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal.

A now-bankrupt McTiernan, director of such action movie classics as Predator, Die Hard, Last Action Hero and Die Hard with a Vengeance, was released from prison in 2014, and hasn't directed a single feature film since 2003's critical and commercial dud Basic.

This came just a year after McTiernan's big-budget bomb Rollerball, which combined with his subsequent legal troubles made him a major Hollywood liability.

Will It Happen?: With his legal troubles (mostly) behind him and a clear desire to make some money, McTiernan has been shopping numerous projects around.

His proposed action-thriller Thin Rain has been pursuing sales for the last few years, though word has gone awfully quiet as of late, and with his last successful film being 1999's The Thomas Crown Affair remake, he may need to prove himself in a lower-budget arena before studios will want to throw blockbuster money at him again.

Don't be surprised if he ends up in the straight-to-VOD action movie arena sooner rather than later, as depressing as that sounds.