The Die Hard franchise, despite not having produced a good film since 1995’s Die Hard: With A Vengeance, is still going strong by making just enough money at the box office to greenlight another movie. However, having previously been infatuated with longer titles such as Live Free Or Die Hard and A Good Day To Die Hard, they’re going with something a little simpler this time around.
The sixth instalment of the franchise, which was temporarily called Die Hard: Year One, will now be simply titled McClane. Empire first reported the news, with producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura telling them that the intention of this film is to explore protagonist John McClane deeper.
“You can tell our intention by the fact that the title page we handed in says ‘McClane’. We want you to get invested in John McClane more than ever before”, he said.
Considering McClane has had practically zero development since the first movie, this is both a solid enough idea but also a little hard to swallow, considering the franchise has devolved into cacophonous, barely distinguishable action and little else in the current century.
However, McClane does have a potentially interesting premise on its side. Star Bruce Willis will be sharing the screen with a younger version of his character, with the film jumping back and forth between the present and the 1970s, when McClane was just a rookie cop. Despite that intriguing structure, di Bonaventura assures that we’ll be seeing just as much of the Willis version of the character:
“I don’t know how you do Die Hard without Bruce. The idea that he’s not very significant in this movie is not accurate at all. We are gonna explore John McClane in his twenties. But just as prominent is the 60-year-old version”.
Production is due to begin within the next few months, with Live Free Or Die Hard director Len Wiseman at the helm. There are still plenty of details to figure out though, such as who will portray the younger McClane.
Fingers crossed that the new title and potentially good premise leads to something other than a forgettable Die Hard film. Considering that Willis is getting up there in age, this could potentially be his final time portraying the iconic action protagonist.
It would thus make sense to go out on a more personal, grounded level, perhaps in a somewhat similar fashion to last year’s Logan. We’ll wait and see if that is indeed the case.
#Peace.Love.DieHard
