McG

Joseph McGinty Nichol (born August 9, 1968), known professionally as McG, is an American director, producer, and former record producer.

McG began his career in the music industry, directing music videos and producing various albums.

He later rose to prominence with his debut theatrically released narrative feature, Charlie's Angels, which had the highest-grossing opening weekend for a directorial debut at the time.

Since then, he has directed several other films, including Terminator Salvation, This Means War, and The Babysitter.

On television, McG co-created Fastlane with John McNamara and executive produced The O.C., Supernatural, and Chuck.

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.

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 "Walking 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.

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.

McG also owns a production company, Wonderland Sound and Vision, founded in 2001, which has overseen the production of the films and television shows he has worked on since Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

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.

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 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.

The show ended after four seasons in 2007.