It's safe to say that "A Good Day To Die Hard" has been one of the biggest disappointments of the year, not to say that we were anticipating it to be incredible but no one expected it to fall so short of the mark set by it's predecessors, even Die Hard 4.0 (Live Free Or Die Hard in North America).
It seems that the fifth installment of the Die Hard franchise may have made just enough of a profit for 20th Century Fox to give the green light on Bruce Willis' sixth outing as John McClane, tentatively titled "Die Hardest" and continuing the tradition of it's titles being a clever pun rather than a number. Personally, we prefer
"Old Habits Die Hard" and our personal favourite "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we Die Hard" but I guess we're not the writers here, that mantle has been passed onto British scribe "Ben Trebilcook".
Trebilcook who been within the shadows of the screenwriting industry for the past 20 years, which gives us hope that he will be bringing originality to the franchise without straying from its own values, i.e 4.0's Cyber Terrorists.
Not much is known about the film except that John McClane will be returning, his son? as of yet, unconfirmed. It has been reported that the film will take place in both New York and Tokyo and will be reintroducing the company of which the first film was featured around "Nakatomi". Although 20th Century Fox recently denied the Tokyo rumours, a glimpse at Trebilcook's Twitter feed strongly suggest it, Trebilcook admits that he is merely in the process of writing a treatment. He says that Fox may decided to go in a different direction, however, looking at his ideas and his passion when talking about the film, we hope he will get his chance.
If we break down the series into two trilogies, the original 1-3 and the recent 4-6, both seem to follow the same pattern, a really strong film followed by a not so great film followed by another good film. If Die Hardest continues this trend, we may be looking at quite a decent film.
How do we think it should be made? Looking at the evidence, the two most highly acclaimed of the series are the original "Die Hard" and its second sequel "Die Hard with a Vengeance", what links those films? Germans, namely [SPOILER] the Gruber brothers, the first film about a german (Alan Rickman) attempting to rob the Nakatomi company and the third film about his brother (Jeremy Irons), seeking revenge for his death. Could there be an unnamed and unknown child, the best way to continue the series could be by reintroducing the Gruber clan, might we suggest "Benedict Cumberbatch" or "Michael Fassbender"?
Another important aspect of the success of the new film, is to stop diluting it! Die Hard is an 18 (R rated) yet in the UK the fifth instalment was a 12a (Pg-13), meaning that the language is cut down, the blood is cut down and the violence is cut down, these are thing you don't want to cut down on in a Die Hard movie.
Cutting the films rating means that McClane goes from looking like this at the end of Die Hard, to this at the end of A Good Day To Die Hard.
All in all, we here at Storm Coming, feel that the next chapter in the Die Hard saga is in some pretty safe hands, Bruce Willis always has the character nailed, the writer seems very promising and it seems that a couple of producers and other crew members may be returning after being absent in the fifth outing.
I end this article be quoting the title of the worst of the sequels, because Die Hardest may just be, A Good Day To Die Hard.
By Adam Barker
The feature sees the pleasant return of Billy Crystal and John Goodman in the starring roles, it also introduces a huge mix of characters including voices by Alfred Molina (Spider-Man 2), Charlie Day (It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia), a rumoured cameo from Kelsey Grammar (Frasier) and surprisingly, Dame Helen Mirren as the hard up university Dean, Dean Hardscrabble.
