25 Things You Didn't Know About Die Hard With A Vengeance
25. The Script Was Originally Going To Be Used For A Lethal Weapon Sequel
20th Century Fox
The script for Die Hard with a Vengeance was written by Jonathan Hensleigh, and was originally called Simon Says. Hensleigh initially conceived the film as a vehicle for Brandon Lee, while the part of Zeus was originally intended to be played by a woman.
Either way, the script made its way through the studio system and was eventually purchased by Warner Bros., who re-wrote it to form the basis for a fourth entry in the Lethal Weapon franchise.
It's certainly easy to see how Hensleigh's script would've lent itself well to Lethal Weapon. With a Vengeance is the only Die Hard that could really be described as a buddy-cop feature, and fans have been comparing the film to the Lethal Weapon series for a long time anyway.
Even so, despite WB's plans to use Simon Says as the script for Lethal Weapon 4, they eventually passed, allowing Fox to purchase the script and rewrite it as a Die Hard sequel.
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.
