WTF Happened to Die Hard?

there are certain roles where you just can't imagine any other actor playing them Indiana Jones Ellen Ripley from her you [ __ ] Rocky Balboa character and actor are forever intertwined never to be separated because you're not ideal we like to think the Die Hard series has one John McLean every man turned Superman fighter of devious Crooks perpetually unshaven and probably hung over the character appeared in five movies total and even if the sequels offer gradually diminishing returns you are about to have a very bad day tell me about it Bruce Willis's sarcastic detective remains one of the most iconic Leading Men in movie history and we can't imagine anyone but Willis in the role it's driving this car Stevie Wonder it could have been very different what if Clint Eastwood had taken the role of John McLean or Burt Reynolds this film I want them to remember Hell how about Frank Sinatra the Die Hard we know was almost a completely different beast and not just when it comes to getting its protagonist right the movie we love and watch every holiday season because it is a Christmas movie was burdened with script problems got turned down by actors and directors alike and was shut down by the police and all that was before people were laughing at its leading man potentially torpedoing any success at the box office crowd find out what the [ __ ] happened to this movie [Music] while it's difficult to consider Die Hard without Willis in the lead it's also hard to imagine it being called anything other than die hard but for a while it was stuck with the James Bond sounding title nothing lasts forever which was the name of a book by author Roderick Thorpe Thorpe had written a hard-boiled Noir novel called the detective which was made into a 1968 film starring old blue eyes himself Frank Sinatra the movie was a modest hit and Sinatra wanted to reprise the character so Thorpe got started on another book this one called nothing lasts forever Thorpe took 10 years or so writing it and he went in a much different direction this time the main character Joe Leland goes to LA to visit his daughter in the skyscraper where she works during her office Christmas party [ __ ] California as bad luck would have it terrorists invade the place killing guests and generally ruining the party it's up to Leland to take them out one by one utilizing his street smarts and the building's elevator shafts and ventilation ducts to get around though he proves heroic beyond belief Joe's night doesn't end well as his daughter Falls to her death after lead terrorist Gruber takes her out a window with Bleak ending aside sounds like a hell of a movie right no matter how the factory recall 20th Century Fox owned the rights but was having trouble adapting for the big screen Along Came young screenwriter Jeb Stewart who had one of those hot but unmade scripts in Hollywood and was struggling to find his next paycheck before getting the opportunity to adapt nothing lasts forever into a screenplay but he couldn't wrap his mind around the main character a tower and unappealing 60-year-old one night Stewart got into a fight with his life stormed out of the house and drove the highways of La in an instant his life flashed before his eyes when his car plowed into a gigantic empty box on the road causing pull over in a panic right then Stewart realized what nothing lasts forever would be about a man who should apologize to his wife but doesn't and comes to regret it when it seems like his life could end that night this is simply the beginning Stuart then 35 pages of the script now with a more humanized lead character and a sense of direction producing the movie was Mega producer Joel Silver who had had success with 48 hours and creditor silver had some demands for the project one was a title change to die art and another was that at the end of the movie the top of the building somehow had to blow up and while the Christmas setting was in The Source novel silver insisted on retaining it for the movie because he had also Made Lethal Weapon the previous year and discovered there would be extra residual checks from annual December TV errands Stewart made a key change of his own early on he disliked the name Joe Leland and instead chose John McLean because it sounded strong and reminded him of his own Scottish Roots I'm dead exactly look at my sexy body he finished the first draft quickly and the script got a green light shocking and delighting the struggling writer what he didn't know was that he'd soon be replaced on the very project he helped get off the ground of course silver had to find a director and his first choice was Paul verhoven who a year earlier had helmed the successful sci-fi satire RoboCop nice shooting son what's your name Murphy after verhoven turned the project down silver went to his Predator director John mctiernan who also rejected it allegedly mctiernan turned it down three separate times before finally agreeing to Direct One of mctiernan's main concerns was the movie's antagonists he felt terrorists made the entire Enterprise dark and nasty and he wanted to find a way to give the project some Joy this eventually led to the villains changing from terrorists to sophisticated thieves who said we were terrorists mctiernan's thinking was that robbers were more fun to watch and a certain segment of the audience might even root for Merry Christmas the search then began for the leading man The Producers had no choice but to ask Frank Sinatra if he wanted to reprise his character from the detective since the option was in his original contract with box sensibly the 72-year-old Sinatra turned it down I said Frank do you have a problem with somebody knowing that you're a good man he says what the [ __ ] kind of question is that the studio then went to Clint Eastwood who supposedly didn't quite get the sense of humor the filmmakers were starting to infuse in the project after Eastwood turned it down an array of familiar names were approached Sylvester Stallone Al Pacino Richard Gere Burt Reynolds James Khan Paul Newman and of course Arnold Schwarzenegger who was more interested in testing out his comedy chops with twins well money talks and [ __ ] walks how can [ __ ] walk that slang huh yeah with no A-list actor seemingly interested in the role The Producers cast a wider net one that eventually caught Bruce Willis here I figured you and Carl and Franco might be a little lonely so I wanted to give you a call at the time Willis was famous for the hit show Moonlighting and had only one major film role under his belt the romantic comedy blind date initially Willis had to turn down die hard because it would interfere with his Moonlighting schedule but fortuitously his co-star Sybil Shepard happened to get pregnant and that opened up Willis's schedule to try his hand at being an action star but there was still overlap between the show and the movie and Willis would sometimes have to shoot Moonlighting during the day and die hard at night Willis earned a reported five million dollars for the role a large sum at that time only reserved for established Stars the move set some waves through Hollywood with concerned Studio Executives wondering if we're paying Bruce Willis 5 million dollars what will we have to pay real stars attention whoever you are this channel is reserved for emergency calls only [ __ ] lady noise sound like I'm ordering a pizza with Willis aboard the task of improving the script was given to Stephen D'Souza who had worked for Joel Silver on 48 hours and Commando de Souza's job was to inject humor into the proceedings and punch up supporting characters and subplots not only that he had to come up with an entire second half of the movie since only the first 30 pages of Jeb Stewart's earlier screenplay were being used Hans Bobby I'm your white knight throughout production D'Souza was literally coming up with the movie as they filmed constantly worried they would catch up as he furiously typed away like that bit with the ambulance coming out of the truck at the very end basically made up on the spot since they couldn't think of another way the villains were planning to escape almost as important as the McLean character was Hans Gruber the Suave well-educated leader of the criminals if Bruce Willis was a gamble The Producers would be doubling down with their pick for the film's head villain rather than an established character actor or recognizable name for the Baddie silver himself chose theater actor Alan Rickman after seeing him in a Stage production of Dangerous Liaisons Christmas Theo is the time of Miracles so be of good cheer no it was his first feature at the age of 41 Rickman would ultimately shine as the Charming but uncompromising Hans and one could say this is another case where it's impossible to imagine anyone else playing this character and Rickman almost turned it down as he didn't like the idea of his first movie role being that of a villain the hero's daughter from the book was changed to his wife for the screenplay which made more sense now that the lead character was a younger man to play McLean's Fed Up wife Holly the filmmakers chose Bonnie Bedelia based on Willis's suggestion he had been impressed with her Golden Globe nominated performance in the racing drama Heart Like a Wheel only John can drive somebody that crazy for the film's other critical role policeman Al Powell who helps McLean from the outside hey don't ask me man I'm just a desk jockey who was on my way home when you rang some big names were allegedly considered like Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall but the producers went the other way and cast Reginald Vel Johnson before Family Matters turning Powell into an other every man like McLean originally a smaller part the character was beefed up by D'Souza and became an integral part of McLean's Journey you just watch your ass and you'll make it out of there you hear me in fact de Souza was creating more material for supporting characters on the Fly not only to add flavor but to give Bruce Willis a rest the actor was becoming exhausted from simultaneously shooting both Moonlighting and die hard and the production needed to get him some down time so material without McLean was needed this is why we got additional scenes with Holly and Hans William atherton's obnoxious TV newsman Richard Thornburg and Al Powell's head up his ass Superior Dwayne T Robinson you listen to me you little [ __ ] I'm not the one who just got butt [ __ ] on national TV Dwayne D'Souza has said that anytime we're watching a scene featuring someone other than McLean that meant Willis was at home sleeping the final main character in the film was nakatomi Plaza itself finding a skyscraper suitable for the massive amount of action and Chaos wasn't too difficult as Fox had one of its own that had just been built Fox Plaza in Los Angeles was the headquarters of 20th Century Fox and though many of its floors were occupied it had open spaces at the top and bottom that were still under construction much of the film's action was shot on the building's empty floors complete with gunfire and explosions all that Mayhem wasn't exactly appreciated by the many tenants who had to work during the day including lawyers for the studio who would constantly complain about the disruption unsurprisingly mctiernan and Company ultimately had to relegate much of the pyrotechnics to the hours after 5 PM of course they'd end up annoying the entire city when filming the multiple explosions that occur outside the building not to mention the spotlights that were seemingly on all night but nothing would cross the line quite like the FBI's Johnson and Johnson swooping in Via helicopter because those are real helicopters flying close to the street production had planned on shooting the sequence for about three days unfortunately the city told him they'd have a much tighter window to work with two hours on a Sunday night the filmmakers set up 24 cameras at various points throughout the neighborhood they managed to get a single take before local authorities told them it was too dangerous and shut them down so all those shots of the helicopters in the film are from that one and only take accomplished in the span of about 30 minutes I was in junior high [ __ ] shooting the film was Dutch cinematographer Jan de Bonte who would later go on to Direct speed and twister apparently mctiernan and dabont had a complicated relationship on some days they would have knocked down drag out arguments about certain shots right in front of the cast and crew and yet at the end of the day they drove home together to talk about the day's work confounding everyone who thought they weren't getting alone while D'Souza was still cobbling together new pages each day Joel Silver gave him another assignment find a way to get McLean and Gruber together before the finale D'Souza was stuck on how to do this until one day he heard Alan Rickman doing a silly California accent for some crew members please God no you're one of them aren't you you're one of them that was a light bulb moment for the writer if Gruber could affect such an accent when bumping into McLean the cop wouldn't recognize the villain's voice the scene where McLean briefly meets Gruber was written and shot soon after and it was reportedly unrehearsed in order to keep the actors on their toes as for the movie's most famous line [ __ ] that came from Willis and d'souza's shared love of the Old Roy Rogers Show which they both watched when they were kids it was always kind of partial to Roy Rogers actually I really like those sequined shirts McLean's line reading isn't exactly what Rogers used to say yep [Music] but it gets the point across and has since become one of the most famous one-liners in movie history one of the biggest moments in the entire film is when agents Johnson and Johnson go out in a blaze of glory when their helicopter explodes along with the top of nakatomi Plaza obviously the filmmakers would not be able to blow up a real helicopter on top of the fox building so the effect was accomplished with Miniatures helping achieve this impressive visual was Oscar winner Richard edland veteran of the Star Wars films its cute little remote control helicopter the resulting effect may not look like much at first but seemed appropriately epic when shot at high speed edlin was nervous it wouldn't look convincing but after producer Joel Silver saw it for the first time he immediately called the visual effects Maestro and screamed with enthusiasm then it was time for McLean to rescue Holly and take out his arch nemesis Hans the film was not going to replicate the book's Grim finale where both the villain and Hero's daughter fall to their deaths but it would still take the idea of the criminal hanging for dear life off the woman's watch band in this happier version McLean unclasps the watch and sends the bad guy to his doom and who can forget that shot of a stunned Hans as he plummets in slow motion I hope that's not a hostage well that look of surprise on rickman's face was real the actor was positioned 40 feet over a giant airbag attached to a ledge by a safety cable he was supposed to drop at the count of three but the stunt coordinator let him go after one so rickman's shocked expression is very genuine the actor later joked they were very careful to make it my very last shot on the film just in case anything went wrong thankfully nothing did after production wrapped the filmmakers were tentatively optimistic about the final product although marketing would prove to be tricky initially Fox put the face of the movie's star Bruce Willis in the print ads and trailers but words started to spread that the general public was put off by Willis's presence and had no interest in him as the lead in a grand action movie people reportedly laughed when he appeared in the trailer responding in disbelief that the wisecracking star of Moonlighting was being presented as an action hero get together have a few laughs a concerned Fox started removing Willis's face from their print ads and posters instead focusing on the building itself I got a big problem down here shut it down shut it down now but soon test audiences started giving the film High grades good enough to give the executives some relief Die Hard was first given a limited release on July 15 1988 where it performed extremely well the following weekend Die Hard went wide making 7.1 million and finishing in third place at the box office the reviews from the public and critics alike were glowing and fox swiftly put Willis front and center in their advertising incredibly Die Hard never claimed the number one spot at the box office but that certainly doesn't mean it disappeared in fact it remained in the top five for more than two months when all was said and done Die Hard was the seventh highest grossing film of that year and it nabbed four Oscar nominations but one no statues when the movie was released on Home Video in January of 1989 it was an instant phenomenon spending six weeks as the most popular rental in the U.S and all these years later we're still talking about it deer Die Hard you rock especially when that guy was on the roof P.S do you know Mad Max especially every holiday season where it's recognized as one of the more popular Christmas movies of all time whether you agree with the label or Not Die Hard is not a Christmas movie it's a goddamn Bruce Willis movie John McLean went on to appear in four more films and Bruce Willis was immediately transformed from small screen comedy star to A-list action movie Tough Guy and while Willis went on to other movies playing several variations of the snarky badass who laughs in the face of danger but this once I would like to hear you in pain play some rap music you don't mind do you no you sure oh take it I don't need it John McLean is likely the character he'll always be remembered for we'll let him close us out the only way he knows how with a kick-ass one-liner [Music] the betrayals Hans [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: JoBlo Originals

Views: 66,846

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Id: DoA_dZrqbhM

Length: 18min 5sec (1085 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 14 2022