If at first you don’t die hard, die, die again. Not only is it good advice, it’s also the title of my unfinished manuscript for the best Die Hard movie sequel ever. I guess the world will have to wait for the story of a cyborg John McClane fighting the undead armies of a resurrected Osama bin Laden, though, because apparently they’re going with a “more subtle” route with the sixth Die Hard movie, which will be titled Die Hardest.
Rather than using a forward-thinking, fresh approach like my previously-mentioned script, screenwriter Ben Trebilcook is drawing on the series’ past to bring it back to its roots. Trebilcook says of his approach to Bruce Willis’s put-upon, average Joe fighter of international terrorists:
McClane is a gunslinger. A now retired, worn-out, tired, busted and broken cowboy. Everything he’s been through has to be taken into account. Yes, it’s a movie, but he isn’t invincible. He was never Bond. That’s what was so appealing to me with Bruce’s character. He got hurt. I see the first one as a drama with elements of action. It took its time to set up the story and unfold great characters. I believe I got that and also what I call ‘the hose-reel moment’.
But will there be a “hose-reel moment” in Die Hardest? You’d better believe it, says Trebilcook:
You know, when McClane, in the first Die Hard leaped off the building with a fire hose, before it went kaboom; in the second, he ejects himself from the plane when he’s surrounded by grenades and in the third, he’s shot out the tunnel, through the air with a gush of water. I’ve got that ‘hose-reel moment’, as well as that cringing ‘glass pulling from the feet’ type scene. Man, that gets me every time. Pursued by bad guys; does he face them and die, or retreat, barefoot, across broken glass? THEN picks out itty bitty shards from his cut feet.
In my sequel, he faces them and dies. Then he’s brought back as a cyborg and fights the undead, and it’s awesome. But hey, what do I know? I’m not some fancy Hollywood hotshot like Ben Trebilcook. There’s one thing Trebilcook and I agree on, though, and that’s the fact that Samuel L. Jackson is terrific and should definitely be in the next Die Hard sequel. Trebilcook was playing coy about writing Jackon’s character from Die Hard with a Vengeance into the script until some eagle-eyed Japanese Twitterers caught onto his little game:
A few Japanese fans on Twitter put two and two together when I uploaded a picture of a Katana (Samurai Sword) with some kanji reading ‘Zeus’. Yes, I’ve written Zeus Carver in for Samuel L Jackson. Like I said before, it’s not a buddy-buddy script, but you can’t ignore him. Zeus played a major part in McClane’s life. They went through a lot together. They would certainly, without a doubt, still be in contact.
OK, Trebilcook, I’ll give you that one. Maybe this script of yours won’t be so bad after all. I mean, I would still be more than willing to do a rewrite on it for you and throw in some terrorist zombies. Since production hasn’t yet started on Die Hardest, there’s still time to do the right thing. The offer is on the table.
