10 Bandwagons Hollywood Couldn't Resist Jumping On

5. Die Hard In *Insert Location Here*

No matter how bad A Good Day To Die Hard was, and it was pretty terrible, no amount of disappointing sequels will ever be able to put a dent in the reputation of John McTiernan's action classic. One of the greatest and most influential movies in the history of the genre, Die Hard both gave rise to the popularity of the everyman action hero and seemingly formed the basis for every action movie pitch made to studio executives in the early 1990's. While Die Hard 2 stuck rigidly to formula and delivered 'Die Hard in an airport', the franchise's 'ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances' template led to a huge number of similarly inspired genre efforts. There was Die Hard on a boat (Under Siege, Speed 2), Die Hard on a bus (Speed), Die Hard on a cliff (Cliffhanger), Die Hard on a plane (Executive Decision, Passenger 57), Die Hard on a train (Under Siege 2) and Die Hard on Alcatraz (The Rock). Before The Matrix came along pointed everyone in the direction of kung-fu, bullet-time and leather, Die Hard was the looming shadow on the action genre for most of the 90's. The movie's influence continues to this day and in recent years we've seen efforts range from Die Hard on a space station (Lockout) to Die Hard in the White House (Olympus Has Fallen, White House Down). While several of these movies are great in their own right and are among the action genre's best, most of the thinly-veiled pretenders were pale imitators of John McClane's first outing in the iconic white vest.