It's time for another comprehensive franchise discussion from Brandon Peters, this time centering around the February 14th release of
A Good Day to Die Hard. As such, the third film on the list is obviously
Die Hard: With A Vengeance. Brandon, myself, and the OutNow Podcast crew did a commentary for this picture a few weeks back which just posted yesterday, so if you want a truly exhaustive and time-consuming look at the film,
double-dip accordingly. But I will say that the film's esteem has grown very much over the last 18 years, so the point where it's no longer scandalous to admit that you like it as much or more than the original. In that sense, it's the
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade of the series. I'll leave the floor to Brandon once again...
DIE HARD WITH A
VENGEANCE
1995
Director: John
McTiernan
Starring: Bruce
Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Irons, Graham Greene, Colleen Camp, Larry
Bryggman, Sam Phillips, Kevin Chamberlin
Rated R
Wait a minute. You
mean to tell me I'm in this shit 'cause some white cop threw some white
asshole's brother off a roof?
~Zeus
Carver
After a five year hiatus, Die
Hard roars back…with a vengeance (*sigh* I tried, but I couldn’t resist). And that’s literally the title. John McTiernan resumes directorial duties and
returns the franchise to the fresh original and fun that infused the original
entry. The film was a big success and
went on to become the highest grossing in the series and the highest grossing
film worldwide in 1995. Instead of following the sort of “Die Hard formula”, McTiernan opens it up instead of keeping it
closed in. New York City becomes John McClane’s
playground this time around. Early on,
the plans were for it to either happen on a cruise ship (that script later
became Speed 2: Cruise Control) or
the Los Angeles subway system. Both ideas were scrapped
for a hot script called Simon Says.
Simon Says had already been turned to down by the Lethal Weapon franchise for their third entry. McClane was added and the script was infused
with Die Hard and became Die Hard: New York. Later as we know, the title became Die Hard: With a Vengeance.
