After a twelve year hiatus between the third and fourth films in the series, the release of Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free or Die Hard, depending on where you’re from) proved that not only can Bruce Willis still hold his own as a believable action hero, but that there’s still life left in the Die Hard franchise; possibly why Fox have just hired a director for yet another sequel.
While rumours of a sequel began almost as soon as the last Die Hard movie was released (to largely positive fan reactions, aside from numerous qualms about its PG-13 nature resulting in Willis not being able to utter his series catchphrase; Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker), and since then there have been a number of false starts, script re-writes, and delays; something which should change now that Noam Murro has been officially hired to helm Die Hard 5.
Whilst Murro’s only feature length directing credit so far was the mundane comedy Smart People (which starred Dennis Quaid and Sarah Jessica Parker), studio executives seem to have been impressed by him largely on the basis of several award winning adverts he has directed, including commercials for the Halo video games (one of which can be seen below).
As of yet Bruce Willis hasn’t signed a deal to return as the series’ hero John McClane (the New York City cop who seems to always unexpectedly land himself in the middle of high-profile terrorist plots; especially those occurring at Christmas), although he’s previously expressed interest in reprising his signature role, and can basically name his price; as without him returning to play McClane there is no Die Hard 5 (or at least not one any self-respecting fan would be caught watching).
We still don’t have a release date, or shooting schedule, for the film (whose most recent script draft came from Swordfish scribe Skip Woods), and as recent reports suggest it may be undergoing a complete re-write (again), it may be sometime before a date is set, but for now fans can content themselves will the news that Die Hard 5 is on, and beginning to move in the right direction.
