Old Ben
With the most recent trailer of two weeks or so ago receiving mixed responses, the plot of the fifth installment of the ”Die Hard” franchise, entitled ‘A Good Day To Die Hard’ is slowly being revealed. It’s no secret that I have my own vested interest and affection towards this love it or hate it action franchise, but over the years, with it, I have gained myself some friends (and foes) and reel in some inside info every so often on what’s what in ‘Die Hard’ world.
The plot, as we have all learned, featured McClane traveling to Russia to be with his son. So what’s going on with his son? What I’m being told is the son of John McClane, Jack, (played by Jai Courtney) is in fact an undercover CIA Operative. Cringe if you will, but this is slightly hinted at in the first teaser trailer released in September where Bruce Willis’ McClane says the line ” The 007 0f Plainfield, New Jersey.” This is referring to where the McClane / Gennaro family originally hail from, the city of Plainfield, NJ and McClane Jr being a secret agent, ala Bond 007.
CIA Agent Jack McClane meets his estranged father, the reluctant hero that is John McClane, in Moscow and who is apparently completely unaware how super-trained an agent his son actually is. Jack is so highly trained, that he’s deep undercover with Russian heavies who have their hands on some nukes, but once his cover is blown, both the younger and older McClanes are left with no alternative than to fend off Russian mobsters aplenty in unfamiliar territory.
Now, a couple of years back, there was a bunch of talk which had the fifth Die Hard film titled ‘Die Hard 24/7’ and a strong suggestion of one script containing a John McClane / Jack Bauer team-up. Both ‘Die Hard’ and ’24’ are of course Fox properties and the latter was apparently pitched as a ‘Die Hard’ esque TV show. Added to the fact that Kiefer Sutherland’s character from the hit show is called Jack and McClane’s son fortunately shares the same first name, could this possibly be the same screenplay with a few tweaks here and there to accommodate the family-factor?
Whatever the case, footage and stills lean more towards a more fan-appeasing, bloodier film than the previous ‘Live Free’, directed by Len Wiseman, I for one am flying my flag, in the form of a dirty white vest, as a currently optimistic fan for ‘Die Hard 5’. Yippee-Ki-Yay Mother Russia.
Speaking of “Die Hard”, William Atherton – who was in the first two films in the series – tells I Am Rogue that there’s (strangely) never been any discussion about bringing him back for another. He also hasn’t heard whether or not he might be coming back for “Ghostbusters 3”, having played such a memorable character – the city official with the small wiener – in the original.
“Well, everybody is curious about Ghostbusters 3. I just don’t know? I mean we all did the game, which was like number three in the world for the last two years or something. So a lot of people thought of that as really the third one. I don’t really know? That’s kind of all over the place. I think Ghostbusters as an idea could have so many different tangents that it’d be hard to pick which one. But Die Hard I would not particularly want to return to. I mean the fun part of it was working with Bonnie (Bedelia). That’s the fun part. That was a singular character that had a singular purpose there so I never thought about it after the second one really. I thought that was kind of it and with each Die Hard, Bruce has a younger wife!”
A new set-video from “A Good Day to Die Hard” has emerged on YouTube (thanks to /Film), which shows Willis’s lighter side.
