Back when the fourth Die Hard movie was first announced, a lot of people were wondering where original Die Hard director John McTiernan was and why he wasn’t considered for the job. Now I’m not sure if this is why he didn’t get the nod, but it’s been a little known fact that the guy has been fighting a legal battle to keep himself out of jail for the past year or two. It all stems back to accusations that he had hired a private investigator to tap the phones of his ex-wife Donna Dubrow. Today it looks like all of the appeals are finally complete, and the bottom line is that he’s going to have to serve 4 months in prison and pay a $100,000 fine. Yippee Ki-Yay!

Apparently his defense in this case was that he had “just returned from a long trip to Asia, was taking antibiotics for a sinus infection and had gone off his anti-depression medication”. Clearly the judge found it to be a pretty weak argument. I don’t know why he didn’t just explain that he’s a Hollywood director and that he has lost the ability to distinguish between movies and the real world. Either way, as a fan of McTiernan’s work, this isn’t positive news. His last film was the 2003 flick Basic, and although he has a few new projects in pre-production, it’s unclear how soon he will be able to get his career back on track.