McG

Early life

Joseph McGinty Nichol was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and grew up in Newport Beach, California. As his uncle and grandfather were also named Joe, his mother nicknamed him "McG" to avoid confusion.

McG attended Corona del Mar High School, where he met Mark McGrath. Initially he wanted to become the lead singer of a band he formed with McGrath. However, he failed as a front man and persuaded McGrath to take over. Instead he worked behind the scenes as producer and marketer for the band until he was 22. He then obtained a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from UC Irvine. McG thought of attending medical school afterwards, but tired of studying, he formed a record label known as G Recordings in 1993, working on his hobby as a still photographer, shooting local bands and musicians, along with earning money driving a delivery truck. He eventually brought to the latter job McGrath, who had been in a state of depressive apathy after graduating, and decided to again try his hand fronting a band. The band had several hit singles as Sugar Ray, signed with a label, and went on tour. McGrath has said McG has been a "psychologist, therapist and [musical] collaborator" to him, including convincing him to record "Fly", which would become Sugar Ray's breakout hit, given McGrath previously did not feel he had the singing voice to perform the song well.

Career

Early work

In 1995, McG produced Sugar Ray's first album and co-wrote several songs on their second. He borrowed $3,500 from his father to make a music video for the song "Caboose", which helped the band get signed with Atlantic Records and started his career as a music video director. His work doing the first three Korn music videos led to a stint with Cypress Hill, and afterwards McG became highly sought with over fifty music video credits such as Sublime's "Santeria", Smash Mouth's "All Star", and The Offspring's "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)", along with documentaries on Korn and Sugar Ray. In 1997, he was awarded the Billboard's Pop Video of the Year Award for Smash Mouth's "Walkin' on the Sun" and the Music Video Production Association's Pop Video of the Year Award for Sugar Ray's "Fly". Eventually, this landed him in the television commercial business, directing advertisements for Major League Baseball and Coca-Cola. A notable one was a commercial for Gap, which was honored at the 1999 London International Film Festival.

2000–2007

Impressed with McG's music videos, Drew Barrymore approached him about directing a film adaptation of Charlie's Angels. He accepted, wanting to take on bigger projects, and pitched the movie to the studio executives, who were initially reluctant but later approved the project after much persistence. The film, for which he was paid $350,000, was released in 2000 and went on to gross over $250 million worldwide with mixed critical reception from critics and fans alike. However, he won the Hollywood Breakthrough Award at the 6th Annual Hollywood Film Festival held in 2002. Sony paid him $2.5 million to direct the military action-drama Dreadnought for Red Wagon Entertainment. He was also set to develop a sequel to Charlie's Angels and present his film producing debut with Airshow, the latter of which has yet to be made.

In February 2002, Jon Peters and Lorenzo di Bonaventura attached him onto the fifth installment in the Superman film series that was in development hell, thus putting his previous projects on hold. McG and Peters hired J. J. Abrams to pen a new script for the film entitled Superman: Flyby, which was submitted in July 2002. Bailing out of the project in favor of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle in September 2002, McG was replaced by Brett Ratner. Meanwhile, he developed and co-created a television series with John McNamara called Fastlane (2002), which was eventually canceled after one season due to the high costs of each episode. Josh Schwartz approached him and his producing partner, Stephanie Savage, about another television series as well, The O.C. (2003), which revolved around the lives of several teenagers based in McG's hometown of Newport Beach. McG was set to direct the pilot, but because of scheduling conflicts with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, he was replaced by Doug Liman. The show ended after four seasons in 2007.

The sequel to Charlie's Angels followed in 2003, and although not as successful as the first, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003) also made over $250 million worldwide. Shortly thereafter, Sony extended its first-look production deal with Wonderland Sound and Vision for an additional three years, with Hot Wheels, Airshow, and Radiant on their film slate. Since then, none of those films have been developed with the former, which was previously supposed to be a directing vehicle for him in 2003 (he later chose to produce instead in 2006), being put into turnaround in 2009.

Warner Bros., still satisfied with his bankability, re-hired him to direct Superman: Flyby in April 2003 after Ratner had dropped out due to casting and pre-production difficulties. During his tenure, McG and the producers spent more than $15 million planning storyboards, concept art, and locations, as well as having script revisions and the film completely pre-visualized. However, McG later left the project, citing his fear of flying to Sydney. This eventually brought Bryan Singer on board in July 2004, resulting in Superman Returns. McG produced the television series, The Mountain (2004), on the same year, also getting canceled after one season.

2007–present

On August 2, 2007, McG signed a three-year first-look production deal for his Wonderland Sound and Vision company with Warner Bros., planning to "produce three movies a year" and directing "one of them every year." The first four films set up were Nightcrawlers (now known as Monster Squad), an untitled spy project, Yucatan, and Maintenance. The former, about an aberrant father who must confront his childhood tormentor to rid of his fear of monsters and the dark, was arranged to start in November 2007, but McG dropped out and was later replaced by Mike Mitchell; the untitled spy project was rewritten by Phil Alden Robinson and was to be produced by Basil Iwanyk; Yucatan, based on Steve McQueen's leftover notes and storyboards of his passion project, is an epic adventurous heist film, though Warner Bros. has now placed the project under Team Downey; and Maintenance was a film adaptation of Jim Massey's comic book series of the same name about two janitors who work for a weapons manufacturer that supply to the world's most evil super villains, but the rights of the film have moved to DreamWorks Animation. As a result, none of them will feature the involvement of McG.

On October 30, 2007, Fox approved a pilot for an American remake of the British cult show Spaced, which McG served as an executive producer, even though Simon Pegg and fans were outraged at the prospect of having a remake without the original creators' involvement. Nonetheless, the pilot, written by Adam Barr, was panned before its airing, resulting in Fox scrapping the series. McG then executive produced Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious (2008). The Pussycat Dolls Present series was canceled afterward. He was the executive producer for the WB Television Network's online series, Sorority Forever (2008) and Exposed (2010), as well.

McG's next film project was Terminator Salvation (2009), the fourth installment of the Terminator film series that introduces the future war fought between humanity and Skynet. After the Halcyon Company purchased the rights, they signed McG onto the project, for which he was paid $6 million. Although he promised fans that he would bring back credibility to the saga, with the casting of Christian Bale and a personal talk with James Cameron, the film, released on May 21, 2009, in the United States and Canada, received mixed reviews. It grossed $371 million worldwide, well below industry expectations considering its high budget. In promotion of Terminator Salvation, at a Wondercon event, McG highlighted actress Moon Bloodgood, and asked the audience, “Do you want to see Moon’s boobs?”

Personal life

McG has suffered from agoraphobia. He was unable to board a plane going to Australia to shoot Superman: Flyby and dropped from the film as a result. McG told people he suffered from fear of flying despite the issue being persistent agoraphobia. "It was easier to say it was a fear of flying because, while it might make me look weak, people can understand it and I don't have to say, 'Well, I'm kind of crazy,'" he told Fast Company.

His brother died of a cocaine overdose in 2007, which he says has kept him grounded and reminds him not to take life for granted.

He and actress Bridget Moynahan met on an airplane and dated for a time, starting in late 2010.

McG received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from York College of Pennsylvania on May 14, 2022.

Filmography

Film

Producer only

Stay Alive (2006)

Fantasyland (2010)

Stolen (2012) – executive producer

Before We Go (2014)

Playing It Cool (2014)

Mercy (2014)

The DUFF (2015)

When We First Met (2018)

I Feel Pretty (2018)

Tall Girl (2019)

Holidate (2020)

Love Hard (2021)

Tall Girl 2 (2022)

Música (2024)

Clashing Through the Snow (TBA)

Television

Executive producer only