It's safe to say that the announcement of Die Hard: Year One wasn't exactly met with a chorus of yippie-ki-yays. Fans immediately assumed that franchise star Bruce Willis would be playing a minimal role in the film, but that might not be the case after all.
Speaking with Slashfilm, director Len Wiseman has noted that Willis' present-day John McClane will show up in more than just a couple scenes in the film: "He will be more present than that. This character of course is modern day and the origin story if you can call it that has ramifications on present day McClane. What it’s not is it’s not a cameo bookend scenario. It’s a prequel/sequel hybrid that I really haven’t seen before and is incredibly different."
Of course, the amount of screen time Willis gets is not the only concern about the proposed Die Hard prequel. For one thing, doesn't the original 1988 classic qualify as Die Hard: Year One? How much more of McClane's origin do we really need to see? In an interview with Collider, Wiseman stated that: "We’ve never seen the actual love story. We know its demise, but we’ve never seen what it was like when he met Holly, or when he was a beat cop in ‘78 in New York when there was no chance of him making detective. It’s always been something I’ve been thinking about, and now we’re doing it. And it ties in".
After the complete and utter failure of A Good Day to Die Hard, it's going to take a lot for Wiseman and co to get people excited about the franchise again, and these updates don't inspire optimism. Let's hope we're wrong...
Directed by Len Wiseman and starring Bruce Willis (and hopefully other actors), a release date for Die Hard: Year One is yet to be announced.
2016 is already shaping up to be an incredible year for film lovers. Sign up to Total Film with our trial offer and get 3 issues of Total film for just £5 - that’s less than a tub of popcorn and a coke.
