Len Wiseman (Underwold, Total Recall), the man who directed Bruce Willis in 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard, is returning to the action franchise to helm the sixth installment, tentatively titled Die Hard: Year One. Wiseman describes it as a prequel/sequel.
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The prequel part of it, which takes “place on New Years’ Eve 1979,” will focus on a young John McClane before he became a bitter cop with limited career advancement and a failed marriage. Wiseman wants to show how he ended up that way. “We’ve never seen the actual love story,” Wiseman told Collider. “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.”
And if that’s not your thing, don’t worry, Wiseman is leaving plenty of room for Bruce Willis to shine as McClane in the present. “The reason I say prequel/sequel is because I wasn’t going to do it without Bruce. I’m also not going to do it with Bruce being a cameo bookend gimmick,” he explained. “It’s really working into the plot, with the ’70s having ramifications on present-day Bruce. It inter-cuts in a very fun, imaginative way with present-day John McClane.”
The real challenge for Die Hard: Year One will be finding an actor that can portray a young John McClane. “It has to be somebody that has the swagger and the confidence, but also the charm, the wit, the charisma and the toughness,” he shared. “It’s asking a lot, especially in somebody that’s younger. It has to feel like the guy owns it, rather than is trying to put it on.”
Who would you like to see play him? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
