'Die Hard' director emerges from 14-year exile, and makes the 'Ghost Recon' trailer

It's hard to believe John McTiernan—arguably Hollywood's most celebrated director of pure action movies—has been away this long. Or that this is how he chose to start what we hope is a big comeback.

Predator, Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October, even Last Action Hero—McTiernan is a titan of the genre from the 1980s and '90s, but he virtually disappeared after a bizarre tangle with the law that ended with a nearly year-long prison sentence in 2013 for his involvement in the infamous Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case.

Now 66, McTiernan's emerged after a 14-year self-exile with this trailer for Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands, which dropped earlier this month with little fanfare.

According to Vulture, McTiernan handled the helming duties and has shot another, more action-y sequence for a second commercial.

It's only 90 seconds long but—as McTiernan aficionado Drew Taylor writes over at Vulture—carries all the hallmarks of the action guru's style. And it could be the first green shoot of a bigtime return for McTiernan, who hasn't made a feature film since Basic in 2003.

All that's on his imdb page at moment is an Untitled John McTiernan Project, and Variety reported last year that he was working on an action-thriller titled Thin Rain, which may or may not be progressing at this point. In any case, Taylor says McTiernan has "several potential feature films on his plate, with an announcement about one of them apparently imminent."

In the meantime, we'll take this Ghost Recon trailer as a strong sign that McTiernan's skills for blending wry humor with gnarly action are still alive and well. To which we say: Yippie ki yay, to that.