Oh yes… this is going to go over well. Facing diminishing returns with the Die Hard franchise (A Good Day To Die Hard did decent worldwide business but is low ranked in the US and with critics), 20th Century Fox is apparently looking to go in a slightly new direction for the sixth instalment. So… Are you ready to see a young John McClane?
Because that’s what Deadline has heard is the current thinking for producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura and director Len Wiseman, the latter of which made Die Hard 4.0 (AKA Live Free Or Die Hard) and is now locking in a deal to handle the new one. They are looking for a writer to hash out the basic idea, which is to have Bruce Willis return as the present-day John McClane in bookend segments that will introduce us to the character as he was in the 1970s, a beat cop working New York’s tough streets.
So yes… someone would be inheriting the mantle of one of the most famous action icons in cinema history and would need to play him in the same film as Willis (who does not yet have a deal but has apparently been kept informed). It’s certainly a bold move, but also falls into the category of technical reboot, and would you want to be the person who tried to reboot Die Hard, a film that already shows us how John McClane evolves from the cop he was to the grouchy hero he became?
Of course, it’s all still very early for this one, so we’ll see how it develops and refrain from judgment until the movie actually exists. The Interwebs, we fear, will not be so kind.