If you've been disappointed, as I have been, with how lifeless most of Bruce Willis's screen performances have been lately, you should have seen his appearance on The Tonight Show Tuesday night, where he took lifelessness to a whole new level. His interview with Jimmy Fallon started out fine and fun during the chit-chat portion, but as soon as the focus switched to the DIE HARD franchise and his new film DEATH WISH, Willis seemed to shut down. During the awkwardness that followed, Willis did mumble an update on the status of the sixth DIE HARD film, which LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD director Len Wiseman has been developing for around two and a half years now. Willis said,
I'm about to wing out to California to start to see what the script looks like."
Behind-the-scenes stories and Willis's demeanor in this interview lead me to believe that there probably isn't a movie on his schedule that he's looking forward to less than another DIE HARD. It's clear in A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD that he wasn't enthusiastic about doing that film, and I assume his outlook on the next one is similar to the Bill Hicks line, "bear with me while I plaster on a fake smile and plow through this shit one more time."
Possibly titled DIE HARD: YEAR ONE, the new sequel is said to cut back and forth between present day John McClane and a younger version of the character, working as a cop on December 31st, 1978 and romancing his future wife (and future ex-wife) Holly. Wiseman has said,
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."
We'll keep you updated on DIE HARD 6 / DIE HARD: YEAR ONE as the project continues to move forward.