25 Things You Didn't Know About Die Hard With A Vengeance

Is it the best Die Hard? Yes. Yes it is.

by Ewan Paterson
Die Hard With A Vengeance
20th Century Fox

Released five years after the first Die Hard sequel (Die Hard 2: Die Harder), Die Hard With A Vengeance saw the director of the first Die Hard, John McTiernan, return to the director's chair, as New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) and Harlem resident Zeus Carver (Samuel L. Jackson) come up against the riddle obsessed terrorist, Simon (Jeremy Irons).

The film marked a couple of series firsts, the most obvious being that it departed from the previous entries' yuletide settings, instead taking place in New York during the summer. It also put McClane back to square-one, revealing that his marriage with Holly had once again failed, and that he decided to stay in New York and not L.A.

Still, for all that the third Die Hard does away with the first sequel's more upbeat ending, it's all for the better. Willis delivers arguably his strongest performance as McClane in the film, and the decision to retire the series' Christmas setting ensured with a Vengeance felt fresh and different.

There are plenty of things about Die Hard with a Vengeance that fans probably don't know either, with A LOT having gone on behind the scenes during the five years it spent in pre-production. Factor in on-set stories, crazy alternate endings and easter eggs, and you're left with one hell of an interesting list...

Advertisement
Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.