When the trailer for the Chris Pine/Tom Hardy/Reese Witherspoon action romance This Means War was set upon the world earlier this month, I hoped it would be McG‘s swan song. But the blockbuster director behind Terminator: Salvation and Charlie’s Angels is getting more work and The Hollywood Reporter has the scoop on what his next film may be.
The director has begun negotiations with Summit Entertainment to step behind the camera for their thriller Puzzle Palace. The film comes from the mind of David Guggenheim, who has another thriller coming out next spring with Safe House starring Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington. We’ll get a glimpse of that one with the first trailer before Tower Heist next week, but one can read a synopsis of Puzzle Palace below.
The story centers on a lawyer and the son of a veteran police officer who learns his father is framed for murder. When he finds out that there is evidence hidden that could free his father, he is determined to find it, even though it means breaking into One Police Plaza, the most secure building in all of New York City. He ends up being locked inside the police HQ with crooked cops on his tail.
A mix of Blue Streak and Die Hard? McG could use some restrictions in his free-for-all career with this one-building concept. If One Police Plaza is the most secure building in NYC, one wonders if the film will spend much of its time trying to break in, or it will jump over it quickly for the pursuit inside the building to begin. We’ll have to wait and see if McG has the restraint in him to pull this concept off.
Guggenheim has also worked with McG on his executive-produced actioner Medallion, from Con Air, The Mechanic (the recent, terrible one) and The Expendables 2 director Simon West. That 2012 films stars Nicolas Cage and Malin Akerman. In other words, don’t get your hopes up. With McG’s Ouija adaptation falling apart at Universal, Puzzle Palace could very well be his next film.
What do you think about the concept for Puzzle Palace? Could McG handle it?