A Good Day To Die Hard

[AndyDursin]

Fox cared more about the cost than the director. Moore was hired because he could make the movie for $92 million, and even if it's terrible (which as MJ and everyone says is the case), it doesn't need to do much to turn a profit, especially knowing the international revenue it will produce.

I was reading that one of the producers re-cut the film and apparently rewrote part of it. That might explain the 97 minute running time.

[mkaroly]

I think it's interesting that the "dinosaurs" of action films (Willis, Stallone, and Ah-nuld) are all kind of striking out with their movies...which leads me to wonder if it's them themselves (ie their star personas), or would those movies have worked with more "contemporary" stars in them with different titles?

[AndyDursin]

I think it's interesting that the "dinosaurs" of action films (Willis, Stallone, and Ah-nuld) are all kind of striking out with their movies...which leads me to wonder if it's them themselves (ie their star personas), or would those movies have worked with more "contemporary" stars in them with different titles?

It's an interesting question, though to be fair, DIE HARD will make more over the 3-day weekend than the Stallone, Arnold and Statham films' collective runs combined. If it doesn't plummet 70% next weekend, it's probably going to be deemed a success (at least financially) because the cost was kept in check.

Could be that these guys need to be paired up a la Expendables to make people get out there. Arnold and Sly have a film together called THE TOMB coming out this year sometime -- it'll be fascinating to see if that fares better.

And it's also true -- THE LAST STAND didn't look GREAT, and that Stallone film certainly didn't either. Choosing better projects might help. (The Statham PARKER movie was dumped into a moderate release, didn't even go wide).

[Eric W.]

Brutal reviews just continue to pour in.

[Monterey Jack]

Fox cared more about the cost than the director. Moore was hired because he could make the movie for $92 million

Geez, I'm amazed it cost even that much...it seriously looks like some depressing direct-to-Redbox thriller starring Wesley Snipes or Steven Seagal. Yeah, Sucks With A Vengeance had bad visual effects, but at least the movie had competent cinematography (in the non shakey-cam bits, anyways). They didn't even spring for the full 2:35.1 Panavison aspect ratio, shooting it in made-for-TV 1:85.1 instead. The more I think about this film, the angrier I get. This is a Quantum Of Solace/Crystal Skull-level disappointment from a franchise that deserved better.

[AndyDursin]

Saw this on Twitter. And there you have it:

DIE HARD 5 has already surpassed its $92M budget: Domestic - $33M, Int'l - $80M, WW - $113M.

[Monterey Jack]

Good thing it did, because no one is going back for seconds on this one next weekend.

[mkaroly]

I'll wait for it to come out on video...and actually it sounds like something I can get by without seeing ever!

[AndyDursin]

How sad is it that I have one of those free ticket vouchers, and don't want to drive 5 minutes to the nearest theater to go see it? (Not my favorite theater, but it's still there). I mean, it's cold out and I have other things to do.

[Monterey Jack]

You're not missing a damn thing, Andy. Even a minute-long MEW cameo can't save it (and I can sit through anything for MEW). Even as bad as Sucks With A Vengeance was, it wasn't as catastrophically BORING as Good Day was. Had I paid actual money to see it, I would have been infuriated. As it is, I was merely depressed seeing one of my favorite screen heroes reduced to something this wan and slapdash and joyless.

[AndyDursin]

You're not missing a damn thing, Andy. Even a minute-long MEW cameo can't save it (and I can sit through anything for MEW). Even as bad as Sucks With A Vengeance was, it wasn't as catastrophically BORING as Good Day was. Had I paid actual money to see it, I would have been infuriated. As it is, I was merely depressed seeing one of my favorite screen heroes reduced to something this wan and slapdash and joyless.

Sounds just so depressing. If it were merely BAD it might've been entertaining in an unintentional way, but boring and joyless -- that's the kind of thing that's unforgivable and offers no redeeming value.

Thanks for the vote of confidence -- I'll be staying in

[Monterey Jack]

There's nothing worse than "non-stop" action that's so badly shot and edited that it just becomes collossally boring (there's an eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeendless car chase early on that's absolutely headache-inducing). And the first two Die Hard films were smart in taking their time building up to the mayhem (hell, the first gunshot/death in the original doesn't occur until eighteen minutes of screentime has elapsed ) and setting up the overall geography of the eventual battlegrounds, so when stuff started getting hairy for McClane, you could follow the action choreography and the overall strategy of both McClane and his opponents as they moved their chess pieces around the board. Ever since SWAV, there has been pretty much no attempt to hold onto the "Die Hard-In-A..." formula that the first film invented, which was basically the series trademark. Granted, there was a glut of these kinds of films in the 90's, like Cliffhanger (Die Hard On A Mountain), Speed (Die Hard On A Bus), Under Siege (Die Hard On A Battleship), the Van Damme epic Sudden Death (Die Hard In A Hockey Rink ) and, coming full circle, The Negotiator (Die Hard In A...Um, Building. Again), which tied the hands of the various Die Hard screenwriters over the years trying to come up with new confined placed to stage action, only to have these settings snapped up by other rip-off movies. SWAV was Die Hard In...Uh, Manhattan, Live Free was Die Hard All Over The East Coast, and A Good Day was Die Hard In Budapest-Subbing-For-Russia. If they ever do a sixth, I hope they actually come up with a confined area again to bring the series back to it's roots. There was a rejected screenplay for the third film that would have been set in the subway systems under L.A. that sounded like a cool idea.

[John Johnson]

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/news/a ... ealed.html

[AndyDursin]

Ugh.

The problem here is that they're cutting the budget down, at the same time they've got a willing star who won't stop from appearing in ANY project so long as a paycheck is provided. lol. So as long as the money keeps flowing in, nothing is going to prevent them from keeping the series going.

$300 mil worldwide isn't spectacular but it's good enough when your budget was under $100 mil.

Looks like they're going to keep the international flavor as well (Tokyo!), in an effort to cater to overseas markets -- which is also where this last installment fared the best. No coincidence!

[Monterey Jack]

They need to stop cheaping out when it comes to the budget and filmmakers involved...had they spent more lavishly and hired a better director for A Good Day, it would have obviously cost more, but it probably would have made enough more to justify the larger budget. A sixth Die Hard will face an uphill battle from fans burned by the slapdash last installment, and continuing to treat the series with such lack of care will kill the goose that has been laying a lot of golden eggs for Fox for the past 25 years. Get a really solid genre filmmaker with a strong visual style (Martin Campbell would be a good choice, and not too expensive, either), spend more than a buck ninety-eight on the special effects budget, and bring back Holly Gennero-McClane, and the series' loyal fanbase will hopefully forgive and forget. Live Free was an expensive A-list production, and the budget was up there on the screen, whereas A Good Day looked like a direct-to-Redbox Wesley Snipes movie.