When discussing the greatest action movies ever made, it won't take long before someone brings up Die Hard. While this hugely entertaining actioner inspired endless copycats over the years, it was also a very unique movie for the genre when it was first released. It tried a new approach to the kind of action hero audiences were used to seeing and made John McClane an action movie icon.
Not surprisingly, the movie spawned a new action franchise that has four sequels to date, however, it was mostly seen as diminishing returns. The relief among fans at hearing the news that the proposed Die Hard prequel was canceled shows how much the franchise has lost its way. While it is tempting to say Die Hard was one of those great movies that should have just been left alone, Die Hard with a Vengeance showed there was once potential for this franchise.
RELATED: Friends Of John Wick: The Franchise That Shook The Action Genre
Action movies looked very different when Die Hard was released. At that point, action movie heroes were played by musclebound stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone playing one-man armies who seemed indestructible. Then came Bruce Willis as John McClane who was much smaller and more of an everyman. While visiting his estranged wife at her office Christmas party, he finds himself on his own as terrorists take over the building.
If this were Stallone and Schwarzenegger, it's hard to imagine the movie lasting more than a few moments as they would cut their way through the bad guys with little effort. However, saving the day was not easy for McClane. He was not some killing machine who shrugs off being shot and knocks his foes out with one punch. In fact, he would much rather someone else step in a become the hero. He is hurt, he is scared, and he doesn't even have his shoes. He was one of the first and most famous everyman action heroes and his vulnerability really makes Die Hard something special.
When it came to the first sequel, Die Hard 2, it seems like they went with the classic Hollywood approach to making a sequel – take what worked the first time and do it a second time. The problem was that the things they took away from what worked the first time were things like the premise and the setting. Die Hard 2 finds McClane at an airport on Christmas Eve only for it to be taken over by terrorists who threaten to crash the planes flying above, including one McClane's wife is on. Die Hard 2 is not bad as there is some fun action and Willis seems to still be having fun with the role. But it does feel like it is struggling to shoehorn in this rehashing of the same story, even having to make several jokes about McClane once again being in the wrong place and the wrong time. It also painted a bleak picture for the future of the franchise as it became clear that this premise was going to grow old very fast.
Luckily, Die Hard with a Vengeance did some course correcting. Perhaps due to the fact that some of the Die Hard copycats like Cliffhanger and Speed were actually proving to be good movies, they decided to ditch the idea of McClane once again trapped in one location against a group of bad guys. Instead, the third movie took the action to New York City and opened it up for a movie that felt very different than the original. It was a thriller about a madman bomber forcing McClane to solve various riddles around the city to prevent the next bomb from going off. The fact that the movie began as a script that had nothing to do with Die Hard ended up being a huge benefit. The movie realized there was only one key element from the first movie that needed to be brought over – John McClane himself.
Audiences didn't love Die Hard because it was McClane trapped in a building or because it was set at Christmas. Those elements might have added been fun additions, but it was McClane as a hero that was the real special ingredient. He was not the smartest man in the room and the only one who could save the day. He was just a guy who didn't know when to quit. It was fun following him on these adventures precisely because it was never easy for him. He bumped, scaped, and swore his way to a victory, never making it look very pretty. In fact, the original ending to the movie took McClane to an even darker place as it finds him fired from his police officer job and at a new low. He manages to track down the villain who escaped earlier and kills him in a game of Russian roulette with a rocket launcher. This was scrapped for a typical third-act action scene that is one of the few uninspired aspects of the movie.
Had the franchise continued in this darker character-driven direction, Die Hard could still be a thriving franchise. Each entry could have followed McClane in a new dangerous situation rather than a rehash of his first movie. Sadly, there were a number of factors that turned the series into the mess it became. Ironically, though he made for a refreshing and instantly iconic action hero in the first movie, Bruce Willis eventually became one of the franchise's weakest links. He no longer seemed to care about the franchise and its character.
While that's perhaps understandable that he got bored playing the same character, watching McClane sleepwalk through his adventure just doesn't work. It also seems that those in charge of the franchise mistook its iconic status for meaning it could compete with the modern blockbusters. Die Hard is an action movie of a different era, made on a budget of around $30 million. By the fourth movie, the budget was suddenly over $100 million, trying to match the Fast and Furious and Transformers movies which it was never meant to be in the same vein as.
At this point, reviving the original Die Hard series seems impossible. An attempt to reboot the series at some point feels like the likeliest avenue the franchise might take, but it's safe to say the fans' pushback would be considerable, not to mention that it's entirely possible the same mistakes will be repeated in any new attempt. While some might look at the series ending as a good thing and something that is long overdue, watching Die Hard with a Vengeance makes it hard not to mourn the franchise that might have been.
MORE: Why Jaws 2 Is An Underrated Horror Classic
