Fresh off of the release of his movie, The Surrogates, Bruce Willis is already talking about what film he’d like to do next – and no, it’s not “Armageddon 2: Harry’s Revenge.” Willis is looking to reprise our favorite protagonist, John McClain, for a fifth installment in the Die Hard franchise.

Although, according to Willis, they better not wait around too long.

“I would love to do another one but they better get it done soon, what with the march of time and all that I’m not getting any younger.”

As a fan of not only Bruce Willis, but the entire the Die Hard franchise, I could not be happier about this news. While some people had a problem with a PG-13 McClain in Live Free or Die Hard, I felt that the move overall was as action-packed and entertaining as I could have hoped for. Sure, the movie wasn’t perfect and the whole “nerds can fix, hack or do anything” plot was a bit tired and over-used – but one thing that didn’t look or feel tired was a 52-year-old Willis as McClain.

The past couple of years have brought back many of our favorite heroes returning for new adventures. Last year we saw a 67-year-old Harrison Ford return as grail finder and penitent man, Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls and a 63-year-old Sylvester Stallone reprized his role as our much loved Vietnam war vet, John Rambo, in Rambo. Don’t forget, in 2003 a then 56-yr-old Schwarzenegger returned as the T-800 in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

With Willis turning 55 next year and Live Free or Die Hard being almost 3 years old, if they’re going to make another film in the next couple of years, it seems like good timing and Willis seems in prime form to deliver.

Maybe I’m too much of a Bruce Willis/Die Hard fanboy, but I’m ready for another Die Hard. What do you think?

One note… no more Timothy Olyphant bad guys. Let’s bring back the Germans.

Source: The Sun [via: Digital Spy]

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As we all know, Hollywood is the epicenter of not only fads, but also ripping off copying what works from other studios. We’ve all seen this before many times. One studio puts out a successful movie in some genre and within 6-9 months we see a bunch of movies coming out trying to capitalize on the popularity of the first one.

This phenomenon really took off in the early 1980s, with movies like Star Wars launching a new era in Sci-Fi films (yes, I know Star Wars was released prior to 1980), Superman starting the superhero movie trend, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street giving us the wonderful teen horror genre (at least they were rated R back then). Rambo started the lone hero with enemies that were lousy shots and couldn’t kill him even with machine guns and Porky’s gave us the start of the raunchy high school comedy.

So I suppose it was only appropriate, and a matter of time before Hollywood, bereft of new ideas, decided to re-visit those old gold mines to search for a fresh vein to tap. But now we’re not doing remakes any more… oh no – now the big buzzword is: Reboot.

The first recent film to tackle this concept (and succeed) was Batman Begins in 2005. Warner Bros. took a once successful franchise that had been ruined utterly and completely by descending into tongue in cheek, replete with nipples on the Bat-Suit. As we all know, director Chris Nolan exceeded everyone’s expectations and cleansed our palates of the abomination that was foisted upon us by Joel Schumacher.

Warner Bros. followed this success with Superman Returns, which while it was profitable, was a disappointment to many, and didn’t really “reboot” the franchise. It seems like the next Superman film may actually try to do that (again). We also had the rejuvenation of the James Bond franchise with Casino Royale, which gave us Daniel Craig as the closest thing to the early days of the series and Sean Connery.

The Incredible Hulk reboot didn’t go as well as planned for a variety of reasons including poor marketing and internal conflicts.

So now that the studios have seen that it’s possible to do a reboot well (as opposed to recent failures like Planet of the Apes and The Pink Panther), the reboot trend is moving full steam ahead. Interestingly, the main target for source material seems to the very same era I mentioned above: the 1980s (give or take a couple of years).

Now technically some of the projects haven’t been reboots – a similar trend that’s emerging is to create an additional sequel to a movie franchise that ended 20 years ago. An example of this was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – which while successful, was not as huge a hit as Paramount had been hoping for. The fact that the term “Nuke the fridge” has entered the vernacular has more than a little to do with it, I’m quite sure.

On the “delayed” sequel front we also had Bruce Willis returning as John McClane in Live Free or Die Hard (aka Die Hard 4). While that was controversial due to dropping the rating from the usual R to a PG-13, it did well at the box office and was fairly well-received. We also had not one but two Sylvester Stallone sequels: Rambo and Rocky Balboa, both of which kicked butt IMHO.

Projects ready to hit the screen next year include J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and McG’s Terminator 4. Other “dust off the concept” movies that are in the works include Child’s Play, Hellraiser, Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop 4.

So this got me thinking… what movie reboots/delayed sequel possibilities are out there that haven’t been tapped yet? Now I’m not saying this is a good idea – I’m just saying that I’m betting there are “scriptments” floating around Hollywood for these well-known franchises.

Whether they get made before this trend runs out, I don’t know – but if they DO, you heard it here first.

Here’s the list, in no particular order:

1. Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

Here’s the movie that made both Burt Reynolds and Sally Field stars and beloved by the public. Just a fun, against the establishment, redneck fun movie.

Logic: Are you kidding me? With Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice-Presidential pick and the whole Liberal vs Conservative angst, the timing for a new version of this couldn’t be better!

2. Crocodile Dundee (1986)

This is the movie that made Aussie Paul Hogan a star. With his low key charm and self-confidence, he became and instant audience favorite. It spawned a sequel which wasn’t bad, but in 2001 they did a third movie which was a stinker.

Logic: Someone needs to make a casting trip to Australia to find a new Dundee – shouldn’t be too difficult… Australia seems to have a good supply of “manly men.”

3. Home Alone (1990)

The original starring Macaulay Culkin and directed by Chris Columbus is a classic. There was one sequel and a failed attempt at a reboot back in 1997.

Logic: It’s been 11 years since the last one, so you know that someone out there thinks “if we could only find the right child actor” they could make a go of this one again.

4. Back to the Future (1985)

Another beloved series, which starred Michael J. Fox and was directed by Robert Zemeckis. While the first two were great, the third left a bit to be desired.

Logic: Yes, this one should remain untouched, but it’s got a brand name, was a big hit for its time and I can just see some new spin on this (no doubt with characters that are annoying instead of endearing).

5. Revenge of the Nerds (1984)

Having been pretty nerdy myself at the time this originally came out, I thought it was hysterical. As usual, the sequels got progressively weaker.

Logic: You could almost argue that with the unending string of teen comedies, this is unnecessary. Well, yeah, it IS unnecessary – but remember we have a known title plus lazy screenwriters (no, not ALL of them, but we know they’re out there).

6. Rambo (1982)

Logic: Considering the fact that we just had a sequel, maybe some bright-eyed exec will think it’s time to re-cast this with a younger actor. Instead of a Vietnam vet I’m sure they’d be happy to use a black-ops Iraq war veteran as the hero.

7. Porky’s (1982)

If memory serves, this was the first really raunchy high school comedy (yeah, we had Animal House but that was college, big difference, right? RIGHT?).

Logic: See #5.

8. Mad Max (1980)

Mad Max was a little film that gave us the first big screen appearance of Mel Gibson (dubbed horribly with an American voice). Immediate cult classic -spawned two sequels, one good, one not so much.

Logic: You could almost argue that a reboot has been attempted already with this year’s clunker Doomsday. But it’s not really a reboot unless they use the original title.

9. Rocky (1976)

Logic: Similar to #6, Rambo and the same logic applies.

10. Lethal Weapon (1987)

The original team-up of Mel Gibson as the manic cop and Danny Glover was awesome. Again, each subsequent film was not as good as the one before.

Logic: While there have been many “buddy cop” movies since this one, again we have the “Lethal Weapon” brand name. Definitely reboot material – PLEASE do not bring Glover and Gibson back for this.

So what do you think – do you have any that should be added to the list, or ideas for how any of these should play out?

Thanks to DenOfGeek for sparking some ideas.

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By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A fun, (almost) gritty & wild ride with Bruce Willis easily slipping back into his trademark role.

If you’re wondering whether or not to see Live Free or Die Hard I suppose you might be asking two questions:

“Is Die Hard 4 good enough to become a member of the ‘Die Hard’ club?”

“Would it have been better if it were rated R?”

The answer to both questions is: Yes.

Purists (Is there such a thing as a Die Hard purist?) may be disappointed by the trimming required to bring Live Free or Die Hard down to a PG-13 rating, but I’m here to tell you that the movie still works despite that.

Would it have benefited from the additions that would have made it rated R? Most definitely, and that does detract from the Die Hard vibe a little bit – but just a little. An R-rated version would probably have bumped my rating from 4 to 4 1/, but I’ll get to that later.

The film opens with a scene that almost immediately tells us that John McClane is back, and watching Willis portray the character on-screen is almost like putting on an old, favorite leather jacket that you haven’t worn in a very long time. Right away he just makes it feel like we’re right back in his world once again. It looks like he’s back to being a regular old police detective and no, his wife Holly does not appear in the film as they were finally divorced at some point. We do meet his daughter Lucy (played very well by Mary Elizabeth Winstead), from whom he is estranged.

Someone has hacked into the government agency responsible for monitoring cyber-terrorism and the leader of the agency (played by Cliff Curtis) wants all known “black hat” computer programmers rounded up immediately for questioning due to the seriousness of the offense. One of these programmers is Matt Farrell (played by Justin Long, who you’ll recognize from those Apple commercials). A number of black hatters have been killed and Farrell is on the hit list as well. McClane has been assigned to bring him in to the Feds for questioning, and of course as soon as he arrives at Farrell’s apartment, all hell breaks loose and we are catapulted into the movie at full speed.

It turns out that a fellow by the name of Thomas Gabriel (played by Timothy Olyphant) is the man behind all the computer-related chaos that is wreaking havoc on the infrastructure of the country. Of course the Feds (one of whom makes a brief appearance with the name “Johnson” as a nod to previous films) are shown to be slightly behind the curve, if not completely inept and it’s up to our hero and his trusty 20-something demographic attractor to catch the bad guys.

I have to admit that I went into the theater with some trepidation, but hopeful that the movie would turn out to be good. It actually exceeded my expectations, and I found myself being surprised by that as I sat there watching the film. It’s almost all there: the humor, the fight scenes, the action sequences that are almost over the top but acceptable within the context of the film (well, except for the sequence with the jet – come on now!). I have to say “almost” because there were moments where you could just “feel” that it should have been a bit rougher in fight scene or shootout and that McClane should have been dropping an F-bomb. I know, that’s wierd coming from me, but it just fits the established character. And the way they handled masking the famous “Yippe-kay-yay” line was, I’m sorry… just weak. Just leave the bloody thing out completely if you can’t put it in full-on.

What else worked? I thought most of the performances were pretty good: Willis, Winstead, and even Olyphant each did a good job, although Olyphant was a little too “clean”, I thought. Except for the action sequence with Willis and the jet (oh, and the car impossibly getting airborne and taking out a helicopter from below), the rest were pretty much trademark Die Hard bits with the proper balance of suspense and “holy cow!” factor without going too much over the line.

What didn’t work? At first having anyone, no matter how slick hack into the cyber-terrorism command center had me rolling my eyes, but thankfully later on they give an explanation that helps make a bit more sense of that. Also, whose idea was it to put Kevin Smith in this movie as a Star Wars/computer geek? Puh-lease, give me a break. The guy’s almost 40, and yeah, sure that could be the joke: He’s still living in his mother’s basement. Ha ha… cough. Pulled me right out of the film. Also although the main villain was a WASP, he employed German henchmen. German bad guys in a Die Hard film… I think that’s as much a staple of the series as the Yippi-kay-yay line.

In the end, though Live Free or Die Hard is a worthy addition to the series. If they put an R-rated version on the DVD release I would actually rank it right behind the original in terms of where it fits in with the rest. A lot of fun, we get to know John McClane a little bit better and a great roller-coaster ride that’ll leave you feeling like your money was well spent.

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The movie blogosphere is going nuts due to the following quote by Bruce Willis in the June issue of Vanity Fair:

“I really wanted this one to live up to the promise of the first one, which I always thought was the only really good one. That’s a studio decision that is becoming more and more common, because they’re trying to reach a broader audience. It seems almost a courageous move to give a picture an R rating these days. But we still made a pretty hardcore, smashmouth film.”

This story appeared initially at AICN where there is currently (as usual) a huge uproar over the possibility of the movie getting a PG-13 rating instead of an R. Personally, I try to stay away from the talkback area of that site due to the type of rabble that leaves comments there. For the most part it’s the sort of person who says that an equivalent punishment for making a bad superhero movie would be to subject a director to the sort of thing you see in the Saw or Hostel movies as a real, actual punishment.

Charming.

For example, there are some folks over there blaming Conservatives and Christians if Live Free and Die Hard ends up getting a PG-13. What an idiotic theory. If the movie gets a PG-13 instead of an R rating it’s because Fox Movies thinks it will get more butts in the seats at movie theaters. Period.

Sure, I’m old enough to be a huge fan of the original Die Hard, and it was rated R, along with the two sequels. Would I like this one to be rated R? Of course I would. John McClane belongs in an R rated environment. Is the movie getting a PG-13 for sure? Who knows? According to the official website for the film, it still says “THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED.” At the MPAA website it’s still not listed.

The real question here is will an R rating make a difference? The movie is being directed by Len Wiseman, whose previous two films are the original Underworld and it’s sequel. Nothing to write home about quality-wise there. There are no stellar prior films on the resumes of any of the screenwriters either. The only things in this movie’s favor are:

1. Bruce Willis is in it.
2. John McTiernan is listed as a producer, and he’s responsible for the original film.

That’s it. Can you make a PG-13 version of Die Hard that’s just about as violent and with almost the same amount of foul language? Sure you can. Just reduce the f-bomb to the one famous “cowboy” line from the original and make the gunshot wounds bloodless. :-\

The real question is whether at its core this movie will be any good. There’s talk of boycotts and all that, but I’ll still go see it even if it’s PG-13, although it will bug me, especially since that means that there will no doubt be plenty of 4-9 year olds in the audience with their brain-damaged parents.

I mean raising the rating for Snakes on a Plane really made all the difference, didn’t it?

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It seems that Live Free or Die Hard, the long awaited fourth film in the Die Hard movie series is king of online movie buzz so far this year. This is according to the number of mentions of upcoming movies in blog as tracked by Nielsen BuzzMetrics.

Die Hard 4.0 (as I prefer to call it) even beat out mentions of Spider-Man 3 by 2 to 1, which I find very surprising.

Maybe it’s just the blogs that I follow, but I’ve seen WAY more mentions of Spidey 3 than of Bruce Willis’ upcoming movie. Of course (good) action movies attract a broader market than superhero movies, but it still seems odd to me. After a quick look at my stats I know that here at Screen Rant I’ve mentioned Spider-Man 3 twice as many times as Die Hard.

These are interesting numbers, but past history shows that online buzz is no guarantee of a movie’s box office success (Snakes on a Plane, Grindhouse). Having said that, unless they really screw it up, I’m sure Die Hard will make a ton of money this summer, as will Spider-Man 3. As a matter of fact, this summer is shaping up to be a HUGE moneymaker for Hollywood with those films being released along with the likes of:

Shrek the Third
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At Worlds End
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Transformers
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
The Bourne Ultimatum

It’s looking like a blockbuster summer, folks!

Source: Latino Review

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Click on the above image to see a MUCH better trailer for Live Free or Die Hard. It’s the English language international version of the trailer and it concentrates more on the story (what a concept!) and less on the over the top action sequences. It feels much more like a Die Hard movie than the superhero-ish trailer released recently.

This trailer makes the young guy tagging along with Willis NOT bug me, since he seems to be McClane’s “mission.” Here they give the audience the relationship, which is more substantial than the “buddy movie” relationship that the U.S. trailer implies.

Why is it that this movie not only gets a better title overseas (Die Hard 4.0), but it also gets a better trailer there as well?

Go figure.

Live Free or Die Hard (or Die Hard 4.0) opens on June 27th, 2007.

Source: Cinematical

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Yahoo Movies has the latest (and I presume, final) trailer for the new Bruce Willis flick Live Free Or Die Hard, aka Die Hard 4.0. Click on the image above to see it in a variety of sizes and formats.

I am a HUGE fan of the Die Hard movie series and the John McClane character, but although I’m looking forward to seeing Bruce Willis in the role once again, I’m more than a bit worried about this movie for a number reasons…

1. The young sidekick.

I guess I’m getting old (although not as old as Willis), but it bugs me that they don’t think he can carry off an action hero movie without a sidekick that falls squarely within the target demographic. I just don’t get a good vibe from a tag-along character that basically says “Wow!” every time McClane pulls an amazing stunt.

2. The WAY over the top action sequences.

I mean ok, I understand it’s an ACTION movie, but holy cow… where will the mentality of having to top anything that’s been done before end? Seriously, watch the trailer and replace most of the scenes Bruce Willis is in with a superhero and then maybe it would make more sense. I expect hyper-reality in a superhero movie, and sure the Die Hard films have always been a bit over the top, but this one looks really ridiculous.

The release date for Live Free or Die Hard has been moved to June 27th so as to get a week’s worth of big box office before the sledgehammer known as The Transformers opens on July 4th.

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Here’s the brand new trailer for Die Hard 4 or Live Free and Die Hard that’s been appearing and disappearing online.

Looks like it’s right in line with the previous three movies and I’m really happy to see Bruce Willis back in the role that’s my personal favorite for him. Of course since he’s getting a bit up there age-wise they just HAD to bring in a couple of “20-somethings” in the form of a hot girl and a guy to co-star (similar to what they did with the last Blade movie, which stank). I guess the studio figures that young audiences can’t relate to a 51 year old action hero without having some folks their own age in there as well.

Like, whatEVER.

In any case, the trailer look cool and it has more action shots than alcoholics at a AA meeting.

Enjoy…

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