A Die Hard 6 Is In The Works, And...

[The GOAT]

...It sounds fucking awful.

'Die Hard' Origin Story On The Drawing Board With Director Len Wiseman And Lorenzo Di Bonaventura

Die Hard’ Origin Story On The Drawing Board With Director Len Wiseman And Lorenzo Di Bonaventura

EXCLUSIVE: As Hans Gruber, his brother Simon and several other super villains can attest, it is hard to kill NYPD cop John McClane, despite that underwhelming last film. Fox is making a deal for Live Free Or Die Hard helmer Len Wiseman to return and develop with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura a sixth installment of Die Hard, the venerable action series that overnight transformed Bruce Willis from a TV to a movie star back in 1988. All of this is early, but they are referring to this as Die Hard Year One and I’m told that Wiseman and di Bonaventura are now looking for a screenwriter to script a reinvention of the venerable action series, one that is sort of a prequel while still leaving room for Willis to play McClane as well. Basically, he’ll bookend a story line that will be set much of the action in 1979, when McClane was a cop in gritty New York City and showing how he became a die hard kind of guy.

While di Bonaventura is Paramount-based, he’s involved here because Fox sought to convert one of his project into a Die Hard movie (same as was done with Die Hard: With A Vengeance, which came from a spec script titled Simon Says). Wiseman came up with a new angle that he pitched to di Bonaventura, who’s staying involved here and will produce with the director. Di Bonaventura is certainly adept at tent poles and he also has a strong relationship with Willis, who doesn’t have a deal but has been kept in the loop every step of the way.

The idea of Willis working with a younger actor playing the same character is not unprecedented as Joseph Gordon-Levitt played the young version of him in Rian Johnson’s Looper. Wiseman did a good job giving the Die Hard franchise a second wind in 2007’s Live Free Or Die Hard, which grossed $383 million with a $134 million domestic gross. The last installment, the John Moore-directed A Good Day To Die Hard, though not a crowd pleaser, did gross just north of $300 million, showing the viability of the franchise. I’m told a lot of screenwriters covet this movie, because let’s face it, McClane is one of the great action movie characters of the last 40 years. Wiseman’s repped by CAA.

Silly me, I thought the whole entire point of the original was that John McClane had never gone through something quite like this before. He was supposed to be a normal detective, not some hard-nosed Dirty Harry type who was used to exterminating a large number of criminals at once, let alone a Stallone or Schwarzenegger kind of bad-ass who could take on an entire group of terrorists with no fear. He was an ordinary guy thrust into an extraordinary situation, and he had to rely on every last iota of strength, wits, and survival instinct to overcome the insurmountable odds. The idea that he was always a "die hard type of fella" flies completely in the face of what his character was originally all about.

 

[Neptune]

Just like so many other things, they sell it out. Should have stopped at 3.