Bruce Willis Not Pleased with Die Hard 4

Wednesday, May 02, 2007 -

Bruce Willis thinks Die Hard 2, 3, and 4 didn't live up to the original. I completely agree, and it made me wonder if the same people were involved in all those films because that could explain the disparate quality and theme. Sure enough, the talent behind the camera was extremely fractured.

Die Hard was based on a book by Roderick Thorp, who had nothing to do with any of the subsequent films. The familiar John McTiernan directed (along with the third film, but not the second or fourth) while Jeb Stuart had co-writing credits with Steven E. de Souza (Die Hard, Die Hard 2.)

The second and fourth flicks were directed by Renny Harlin and Len Wiseman respectively. The second film was also based on a book, this time by Walter Wager, not Roderick Thorp, which saw de Souza paired with scribe Doug Richardson.

Die Hard 3's script was written by Jonathan Hensleigh as an original, as was Die Hard 4, written by Mark Bomback.

If you're still with me, this presents a franchise in creative chaos where none of these films have anything in common other than them staring Bruce Willis. If there is anything to be complaining about here, it's not that the forth film is weak enough to score a PG-13 rating. It's that the studio doesn't have the good sense to stick with proven talent like McTiernan and an apparent disinterest in collaborating with the original novel author in coming up with a coherent set of sequels that make sense.

You can dig the rest from firstshowing (via AICN, via Vanity Fair.)

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