There’s a very sound argument to be made that Die Hard would have been better off left alone as a trilogy, but because the franchise proved to be so popular and Hollywood’s studio executives aren’t exactly the types to leave money lying on the table, we ended up getting another two movies anyway.
Live Free or Die Hard was certainly a solid action flick that scored decent reviews from critics, but it definitely wasn’t Die Hard, with John McClane’s everyman qualities completely stripped away as he become just another indestructible hero that was suddenly willing, able and more than capable of taking down fighter jets with his bare hands.
The fifth installment, meanwhile, is just bad from top to bottom, and Bruce Willis couldn’t even shake off the apathy that’s plagued most of his performances during the 21st Century when reprising his career-defining role, with A Good Day to Die Hard turning out pretty much how you’d expect from a film that hailed from a star that couldn’t be bothered and the director of Max Payne.
Disney are now in control of the rights to Die Hard following their takeover of Fox, and we’ve heard from our sources this week – the same ones that told us that Percy Jackson was being rebooted as a streaming series long before it was confirmed – that discussions are already happening about a soft reboot for the franchise, and they want Samuel L. Jackson to return as Zeus Carver via a cameo.
A sixth movie, a prequel based on the Year One comic book and a 1970s-set TV series have all been abandoned in the last few years, and at this point, any further returns to the well should be strictly off-limits, but the brand is still a marketable commodity and so news of a reboot doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. As great as it would be to see Samuel L. Jackson return though, based on the quality of the last two efforts, it would be fair to say that not a lot of fans would be crying out for a Die Hard movie made by Disney. But who knows, maybe they’ve got a really awesome idea up their sleeve?