Here’s my 10 step guide to how I’d make Die Hard 6 an improvement on A Good Day to Die Hard.
1. KISS
Get back to basics. One location, John McClane and a gang of thugs in a big showdown. It’ll rein in the excesses that marred 4 and 5 and get back to the series’ roots.
2. Get a Brit in as the villain
Die Hard‘s major strength is that it has a tip-top villain in Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber, he’s menacing, charming and entertaining and a worthy adversary for McClane. …With a Vengeance starred Jeremy Irons who was another cracking villain, so it’d be nice to get a Brit in the mix again, and preferably someone charismatic and tough enough to give Willis someone good to go up against.
My shout for the role? Idris Elba, he’s cool, badass and looks like he can handle himself in a scrap.
3. No school like the old school
Ditch the CGI and do as much as the effects as possible for real, down and dirty style. Even the best graphics age and never quite convince, blow some shit up!
4. Hire Shane Black
Black is one of the best guys for writing action movies in the business, he’s capable of crafting really cool, memorable dialogue as evidenced by his work on the likes of The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Lethal Weapon.
5. Out of his depth
Have McClane being totally outgunned and also at risk. In the first flick McClane was someone who hurt, he cut his feet and so he was limping, and the impacts felt real, it was what made Willis’ character different from the superhuman Arnie and Sly characters, but as the series has progressed he’s become able to sustain massive crashes and impacts and barely drop his grin.
It’d be nice to see him outgunned and outnumbered having to improvise his way through his enemies and getting a bit beat up along the way. He can be tough, but let’s see him as a human again.
7. Family angle
McClane works best with a personal connection, so stick some family members in the line of fire.
8. Sidekick
Have McClane team up or guard a hapless assistant. Give them a skill that helps but mainly have them irritate and frustrate McClane and get grabbed by the baddies, it gives us someone to watch the villain’s plan unfold and someone for Willis to bounce off.
9. This time it’s personal?
I know I said I wanted McClane to just blunder into a mess, but they could go the other way and have him be targeted deliberately by someone with a grudge. They could be a demented villain out to destroy everyone he cares about, ice Al Powell (sorry, Al)in the pre-credits, have Zeus (Samuel L Jackson from 3) get attacked and survive to team up with McClane again.
You could have them ride to the rescue of Matt and Lucy, who in my soft git version are still together and even have Bonnie rock up too.
The angle could raise the stakes and add an extra element of danger.
10. Definitive Ending
Draw a line under the series, have McClane reunite with his missus for good, or hang up his guns and ride into the sunset. Or, maybe, maybe, kill him off? In an awesome, blaze of glory/last stand kind of way, of course.
Any thoughts? You know what to do. BETEO.
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