McG tackles This Means War

While McG sits around and waits to see who picks up the rights to the Terminator franchise, he’s doing more than just twiddling his thumbs.

The Hollywood Reporter has heard that the Charlie’s Angels director is in talks to direct Reese Witherspoon (below in the brilliant Election , remember that?) and Bradley Cooper in a new comedy drama called This Means War .

Scripted by Role Models writer Timothy Dowling, the flick’s been toasting off nicely in production hell for a while.

But with McG now free to work after Disney’s proposed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea drowned a slow death, it seems he’s interested in getting War going.

This Means War is the story of two spies who are best friends, but then fall in love with and battle over the same woman (Witherspoon).

Meanwhile, in the Terminator corner, Sony officially put in a bid for the franchise rights yesterday.

Though the amount has thus far been undisclosed (surely it will have trumped Lionsgate's measly $15m), we expect they’ll be the favourites to win considering they distributed Terminator Salvation outside of the US, where the film garnered a whopping $246m.

McG has expressed an interest in directing a fifth (and a sixth) Terminator flick, but don’t expect to hear any news about that until the franchise rights have been put to bed.

Can Witherspoon finally star in a good flick after a string of flops...? Talk to us...

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.