Die Hard: Year One - Director Len Wiseman Shares More Details
So…how about that Die Hard prequel/sequel no one wants? Yep, it’s still happening despite the collective will of every right thinking person on the internet.
Sharing a few new details, director Len Wiseman – who also helmed Live Free or Die Hard or Die Hard 4.0 – spoke to Collider about conversations that he and Bruce Willis had about where to take the character of John McClane with Die Hard: Year One.
“After doing the fourth one, there were so many conversations that Bruce 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?"
As we previously screamed into the void, you’re given all the information you need about who John McClane is during the events of Die Hard; anything else would harm the concept of an everyman standing up and taking on an impossible situation. If he’s already slayed a thousand bad guys before that, it undermines the strong character work by Willis.
Still, as Wiseman went on.
"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".
Wiseman confirmed that Willis is very much involved in the new movie, and his appearance wouldn't be just a cameo. Instead, the action we see in the 1970s has "ramifications on present-day Bruce. It inter-cuts in a very fun, imaginative way with present-day McClane".
The new movie will we part-set on December 31st 1979, and it's likely to be an unknown actor who gets cast as the young John McClane.