McG, McG, McG. Having become one of the Intenet’s favorite bête noires after the two “Charlie’s Angels” films, he chased critical respect with the mediocre “We Are Marshall,” and desperately, needily tried to win over the fanboys, to absolutely no avail, with “Terminator: Salvation.” His planned adaptation of Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” was cancelled by the new Disney regime at the end of last year, so everyone’s favorite vowel-free director has been without a project for a while.
But now, he’s in talks to direct “This Means War,” a romantic comedy for 20th Century Fox, set to star Reese Witherspoon and Bradley Cooper. The project has been in development for over ten years at this point, with the likes of Martin Lawrence and Gore Verbinski previously attached. It involves two spies, and best friends (Cooper, and an as-yet-unannounced actor), who fall in love with the same girl (Witherspoon). Interestingly enough, the Hollywood Reporter’s story originally said that “their battle escalates to mammoth proportions, with New York City demolished in their wake” (thanks to Cinema Blend for picking that up), although it seems to have disappeared from the trade now. A detail they didn’t want out yet?
Anyway, with that little detail, suddenly the hiring of McG for a rom-com makes sense, when that rom-com involves explosions and buildings collapsing. Both stars had been circling other projects — Witherspoon’s set to join the Francis Lawrence circus drama “Water for Elephants,” while Cooper was rumored to be joining Cameron Diaz in “Bad Teacher” — so we’re not sure what effect this’ll have on those projects. Neither star has had much critical success in rom-coms of late (Exhibit A, “All About Steve,” Exhibit B, “Four Christmases”), and when culminating with McG, and the nearly unbreakable tenet of the more money a comedy costs, the less it makes you laugh? Well, consider yourself warned.