Believe it or not, but the first DIE HARD movie will be celebrating its thirtieth anniversary this year, and the franchise has been truckin' along ever since, all with Bruce Willis taking the lead, a rare occurrence for such a long-running action series. Although the last film in the franchise, A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, certainly made some cash at the box-office, it was positively eviscerated by critics, but you'd be foolish to think that that would be enough to keep John McClane down. A sixth installment of the series has been in development for some time, but it's been a while since we last heard of the project, but when Bruce Willis recently appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, he confirmed that DIE HARD 6 is still in the works; in fact, he'll soon be flying out to check out the script
I’m about to wing out to California to start to see what the script looks like. So yeah, I think so, yeah.
It's hard to tell what state DIE HARD 6 is in now, but it was previously rumoured that the project would be both a prequel and a sequel, with much of the action taking place in the late 70s', back when John McClane was "a cop in gritty New York City and showing how he became a die hard kind of guy." Known as DIE HARD: YEAR ONE, the project would obviously still have a place for Bruce Willis, who will investigate a case related to his rookie years as the present day McClane.
DIE HARD: YEAR ONE, or whatever it ends up being called, will be helmed by Len Wiseman (LIVE FREE OF DIE HARD) and the director spoke of why he wanted to take on the project several years ago.
After doing the fourth one, there were so many conversations that Bruce [Willis] and I were having about what he put into the character for Die Hard 1. That character comes in with so much baggage, emotionally, and experience. He’s already divorced, he’s bitter, his Captain hates him and doesn’t want him back. So, what created that guy? We’ve never seen the actual love story. We know its demise, but we’ve never seen what it was like when he met Holly, or when he was a beat cop in ‘78 in New York when there was no chance of him making detective. It’s always been something I’ve been thinking about, and now we’re doing it. And it ties in.
Well, I suppose it can't be any worse than A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, right? Please tell me I'm right. If you're hungry for some bored Bruce Willis action, then you might want to check out Eli Roth's DEATH WISH remake which will hit theaters on March 2nd.