10 Movie Scenes With Hidden Tricks You Totally Missed

4. Die Hard With A Vengeance - The Sign

The Matrix
Buena Vista Pictures

Whether you think it's one of the best or one of the worst in the series, you have to appreciate Die Hard With a Vengeance's brilliantly cast oddball pairing of Bruce Willis’ officer John McClane and Samuel L Jackson’s electrician.

The third Die Hard begins with a terrorist blowing up a department store and messing with the NYPD, showing he has all the power by making a pretty ludicrous demand. The police feel as though they have no choice but to comply and suspended officer John McClane is placed in Harlem wearing a sandwich board sign with an extreme racial slur on it.

Except, that’s the case of the finished film. That final word was never actually written on the sandwich board.

During shooting, the sign actually just said “I hate…” and stopped there. Not wanting to ruffle any feathers on the New York streets, the production team wisely decided that it was probably best to add the offending word in post.

An extra benefit to this meant that creating alternate versions of Die Hard with a Vengeance for certain markets, were possible. They could add whatever in that missing space and thus “I Hate Everybody” seemed like a much less controversial version for television cuts.

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The Red Mage of WhatCulture. Very long hair. She/they.