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.
I dunno...I think Wiseman did a bang-up job with the underappreciated Live Free, but yet another "The Early Years" prequel? Plus, who would they get to play the young Bruno? I'm sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt is too busy. If they have to do another one, I'd rather have one last one with Willis, and get Bonnie Bedelia back, already! Throw in MEW (in more than a token cameo that gets tossed out of the director's cut), and I'd see another one with Wiseman at the helm and an appropriate budget (not that cheap-o Russian one).
Looks like they would definitely be spending money this time at least; Wiseman wouldn't be brought back to make another cheapo Euro-shot, glorified direct-to-video project.
The other element is they must have a hook they like because they've optioned a non-DIE HARD project to rework as a McClane story -- of course, that didn't help DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE did it? lol.
AndyDursin wrote:
The other element is they must have a hook they like because they've optioned a non-DIE HARD project to rework as a McClane story -- of course, that didn't help DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE did it? lol.
Of course, it did work out well for Die Hard 2...so you never know
That's true! That was a book they reworked. DIE HARD 3 I believe was someone else's non-DIE HARD script they gobbled up.
I think if Wiseman is directing -- and granted he's no Spielberg, but he's not John Moore either -- this could be workable. We'll see if it gets off the ground.
Die Hard With a Vengeance started as a script called "Simon Says", I believe. It wound up being converted into a Die Hard movie, using most of the same material and making the villain Simon Gruber. I actually enjoyed the first hour or so of it, until things went completely down the cartoon rabbit hole. I appreciated that they filmed the heck out of NYC, and I thought it was quite well cast. I even enjoyed the stuff with Jerry the truck driver. Nothing could save the movie from things like McClane and Zeus jumping onto the freighter, but I enjoyed what I could.
Die Hard 2 has always been okay to watch, but it feels a lot like a retread of the first movie. Only with far less interesting villains. Some of the moments are great, many are forced. I was never happy with Dennis Franz in it. The plane crash in the middle of the movie was to my mind a depth charge that nearly took the movie with it.
Live Free or Die Hard felt anemic when I watched it in the theater. I realized why when I saw the uncut version on DVD. McClane just isn't McClane without the swearing. It's just part of who he is. Not an issue of wanting horrible violence and a hard R - just that McClane is a profane guy and it doesn't sound normal to hear him being polite.
To my mind, the one indisputably good Die Hard was the first one. No need for any further DH movies after that.
Sad to think that people still like Die Hard 3. The "PERFECT DIRECTING!" bit at the end is especially hilarious, as the movie has shakey-cam and piss-poor visual effects throughout.
After watching "The Detective" the other day for the first time, my mind is still dealing with the incongruity that the character in the original novel that became "Die Hard" was Sinatra's character from that movie and that Fox was obligated contractually to offer him the part first even though he was in his 70s!
But it's telling that what was taken for granted as silly back then (everyone knew Sinatra would have the sense to say no and that they could rewrite the part to make it a new, younger character) is something that today's industry is now giving us the equivalent of all over the place. Whether Star Wars or some other decades old-franchise, there is still this obsession with wanting to make actors revisit a role decades later they really shouldn't be doing any longer. I didn't see any of the film after the third one and it was already wearing thin by then (and I thought the second one just recycled things too much from the first film).
AndyDursin wrote: ↑Sat Jun 23, 2018 12:20 pm
That account was suspended!
Eh, I know Lex...he suspends his own account every few weeks in a fit of self-loathing rage, then comes slinking back a few days or a week later slinging the same old opinions.
Plus, who would they get to play the young Bruno? I'm sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt is too busy. 
If they have to do another one, I'd rather have one last one with Willis, and get Bonnie Bedelia back, already! Throw in MEW (in more than a token cameo that gets tossed out of the director's cut), and I'd see another one with Wiseman at the helm and an appropriate budget (not that cheap-o Russian one).