Director Len Wiseman, THE CONJURING screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes, and producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura are hard at work developing a project that has been referred to, up to this point, as DIE HARD: YEAR ONE. But that's not the title on the latest draft of the script… In fact, "DIE HARD" isn't even in the title at all anymore, although the project remains both a prequel to and continuation of the DIE HARD series.
The story being crafted for the sixth DIE HARD film cuts back and forth between the present day, where Bruce Willis will be reprising the role of franchise hero John McClane once again, and events that take place on December 31st, 1978, when a younger McClane (Willis will help choose the actor who'll be playing the younger version of himself) was working as a beat cop and dating his future wife / ex-wife Holly. Whatever happened at that time in McClane's life,
what we see in the ‘70s has ramifications on present day Bruce."
Speaking to Empire, Lorenzo di Bonaventura discussed the approach being taken to the story, and while doing so revealed the new title:
You can tell our intention by the fact that the title page we handed in says, McCLANE.
We want you to get invested in John McClane more than ever before. … We are gonna explore John McClane in his twenties. But just as prominent is the 60-year-old version."
That draft of the script was handed over to the studio in July, so there's hope that McCLANE will be heading into production before much longer.
The title McCLANE follows in the footsteps of films like ROCKY BALBOA and RAMBO, but the one I've been rooting for is OLD HABITS DIE HARD. That's a title in line with the previous ones, it acknowledges that Willis has been playing McClane for a long time at this point, and it would be fitting for a story that will apparently show that the character has also been doing this hero thing for 40+ years. But I guess McCLANE it is.
If any DIE HARD movie was going to be called something other than DIE HARD, I wish it had been A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD… and I wish that wasn't part of the franchise at all.
