These days, movie news can break anywhere. Case in point, Tom Rothman using Jim Rome’s show to reveal the first major details for “Die Hard 5.”
I think Rome does very good work, and there’s a reason he’s one of the biggest names in sports broadcasting. His radio talk show is gigantic, and he’s an incredibly well-known media figure. Even so, it’s still odd that Rothman, the co-chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, would pick Rome’s show as the place to unveil the plans for the future of John McClane, the New York City beat cop with the worst luck in the world.
In keeping with the tradition of the series so far, don’t expect a number in the title. Instead, Fox has announced this new one as “A Good Day To Die Hard,” and they’ve staked their claim on February 14, 2013 for release. The film will be set in Russia, where McClane goes to try and convince local Moscow cops to go easy on his son, who did something stupid while on vacation. When McClane arrives, though, he quickly realizes that things aren’t right, and suddenly two generations of McClanes find themselves confronting terrorists whose actions threaten the entire world.
Sounds like the first task that Fox has got to get right is finding John McClane Jr., or whatever his name is. Skip Woods wrote the script for the film, and John Moore is directing, and it seems like they’ve long since abandoned the notion that McClane should be involved in human scale mayhem. “Live Free Or Die Hard” felt like they were pushing these films to a global scale, and it traded heavily on the family thing with Mary Elizabeth Winstead co-starring as Lucy, McClane’s daughter.
Now we’re going to spend time with the other McClane kid while blowing up Russian locations and playing James Bond. I guess if you’re going to keep making “Die Hard” films, the only way to do it is to get bigger and bigger and broader and broader. Bruce Willis is the one really calling the shots on this franchise these days, and so this is his vision of John McClane. I’m sure he’ll be instrumental in picking the young actor to play his son, too, because so much of the film will hinge on whatever chemistry they have together.
I’m sure we’ll hear more about the film as it gears up to start production in January of 2012. For now, I’ll give this news a muted “yippee-ki-yay.”