10 Movie Scenes Changed At The Very Last Minute

10. John McClane Meets Hans Gruber - Die Hard

While it's one of Die Hard's best moments - at least for Hans Gruber, since it shows his adaptability - the first meeting between John McClane and Gruber wasn't supposed to happen at all. They would have remained two morally opposing forces split until the finale.

In the original script, the scene in which McClane comes across one of the terrorists and is briefly convinced that he's a victim was written for Theo. He wouldn't have had to put on an accent, since the tech specialist was played as an American by Clarence Gilyard and McClane would have worked out he was a terrorist somehow and killed him.

But, the producers were keen to get McClane and Gruber to meet earlier than the end and when they worked out that Alan Rickman was able to do an American accent, they hastily rewrote the scene to replace Theo, which is why he ends up being the only terrorist to definitely survive and to never actually meet McClane at any point.

The change was only possible when director John McTiernan worked out he could shoot the death of Tagakei from an angle where Willis couldn't actually see Gruber pull the trigger to make sure McClane wouldn't be able to recognise Bill Clay as his nemesis.