Bruce Willis says DIE HARD 5 is a go for next year

By Matt Holmes /

Bruce Willis has told MTV that he "thinks" a fifth Die Hard movie is a go for next year at 20th Century Fox and that he would "hire Len Wiseman to direct right now" - which feels all kinds of bizarre to me after hearing Kevin Smith's story of his short cameo stint on Live Free or Die Hard which painted the picture of a production in complete turmoil and lacking any form of leadership. Why would he want to go there again? On his stand-up DVD, Smith recalls Willis walking around on set scratching his bald head trying to figure out why the movie wasn't up to the level of John McTiernan's classic '89 original and why Timothy Olyphant's under-written and horrendously acted villain was no Hans Gruber. All the while Wiseman is spoke of as a light-weight director, who is mostly just happy to have the job and would let Willis get away with anything he wanted. It was clear who was the running the show (which wouldn't have been the case on McTiernan's set) and maybe that's why Willis wants Wiseman back. It can't have been the quality of the picture because Live Free or Die Hard was just awful and derivative of everything that makes a good Die Hard movie. The premise is so simple but the team behind the fourth movie got it so very wrong, and setting the next movie on a "worldwide" scale like Willis wants to, is a terrible idea. What happened to the relatable John McClane, the everyday guy with the big heart who out of will power, smart-thinking and some plain good fortune, manages to save the terroist threat but only barely. A bruised and battered hero - the man we would all hope we would become if we were stuck in a terrorist threat. Not the superhero McClane that was found in the last movie which served no-one.

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