The Kidd here...
Add Cole Hauser to the cast of A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD. The character actor is joining DIE HARD 5, which is currently in production, according to Deadline, in a "pivotal supporting role" as a villain named Collins. There's no indication whether Hauser will be the big baddie this time out or just one of a number of villains John McClane must overcome, this time with his kid in tow, but he's important nonetheless. Once he takes the screen come Februrary then, he'll be worth keeping an eye on as the McClane boys make their way through Russia.
I desperately want another great DIE HARD movie to come our way with the fifth installment. I'm not particularly crazy about John McClane having another sidekick, particularly his son (how'd that work out for INDY IV?) as I think that's been the weakness in the last two films - the insistence that Willis can't go it alone anymore - but as long as that wrong guy, wrong place, wrong time concept keeps getting applied to our favorite refuse to lose New York cop, we've got a fighting chance of getting something more in line with the first two DIE HARDs.
Tom Rothman, CEO of 20th Century Fox, has painted a picture of what A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD is going to look like, and, in a recent interview with Collider, sets up how the McClane-McClane Jr. relationship factors into where things are heading. After LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, there's some serious questions to be asked if this is the DIE HARD we want.
"It’s really a father-son story, which is that John McClane’s been a great cop his whole life but he’s been a pretty lousy father. He has a grown son who he’s not really been in much touch with, and McClane thinks the son’s a fuck up — that’s a technical term."
"So he goes to Russia, he thinks, to bail his son out of jail, and it turns out the son’s not a fuck up, he’s the antithesis of that. In fact, the apple has not fallen far from the tree, the apple has not fallen from the tree, which is that the son is a badder ass John McClane than John McClane."
“It comes to the point in the story where they’re basically the most wanted men in the entire Soviet Union, and it’s the two of them against all of the bad guys. I’ve just gotta say, it’s a classic, classic DIE HARD.”
I get that Fox has an eye on continuing the franchise past Bruce Willis, because the guy is 57 years old and can't make these movies forever, but having John McClane's son being an even badder ass than his dad? The thing that made the first two DIE HARDs so good was that John McClane wasn't necessarily a superhero. He was a regular guy caught in extraordinary circumstances who rose to the occasion, because the alternative meant letting the bad guys win. The audience could identify with that sort of a hero. Moving away from that is moving away from what resonates with us about John McClane.
Plus, John McClane and his kid versus all of Russia? That sounds a little far-fetched, no?
I'm not trying to be negative, but I think holding any DIE HARD to a high standard is important. I'm holding out hope for "classic, classic DIE HARD," because the world needs another awesome action movie... I just wonder if that's exactly what we're getting.
-Billy Donnelly
"The Infamous Billy The Kidd"
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