Blast from the past
NEVER KNEW ABOUT DIE HARD
Action blockbuster Die Hard turns 30 this week and despite spawning generations of imitators, it remains a classic. Here are 30 things you never knew about the 1988 movie featuring a lone cop – played by Bruce Willis – taking on a gang of terrorist burglars in an Los Angeles high rise
1 THE book is based on the Roderick Thorp novel Nothing Lasts Forever but the title was coined by writer Shane Black, who didn’t work on the film but was discussing it with producer Joel Silver while working on Lethal Weapon for him. 2 CLINT Eastwood originally planned to direct and star as cop John McClane but never got the project off the ground. 3 FRANK Sinatra had starred in Thorp’s earlier adapted film The Detective (1968), as lead cop John Leland, who was later renamed as McClane for Die Hard. A clause in his contract meant he had to be offered the McClane part, even though he was 73. More realistic candidates included Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson. 4 SAM Neill turned down the role of Hans Gruber but worked with director John McTiernan a year later in Sean Connery The Hunt for Red October. 5 THE giant teddy bear McClane brings with him as a gift to his kids was reused by McTiernan in that film, seen as a present from Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan to his daughter at the end of the movie. 6 IN A twist of fate, Robert De Niro turned down the McClane role to make road movie Midnight Run. At the same time, Willis was turned down for the role of De Niro’s Midnight Run companion, which went to comedian Charles Grodin, allowing Willis to do Die Hard. Midnight Run was released a week after Die Hard, in July 1988. 7 WILLIS was a star on TV show Moonlighting – made at the same time as the movie. It meant he had to moonlight himself, filming the show during the day and the movie at night. 8 ALAN Rickman almost walked out of the film before it started. It was his Hollywood debut and as an acclaimed stage actor, he was worried about being typecast. 9 IN THE German translation of the film, the German thugs led by Rickman’s Hans Gruber are portrayed as Irish terrorists, partly due to the poor German grammar used in the script but mainly to ease German sensitivities over real-life gangs, including Baader-Meinhof. 10 THE Nakatomi Tower, which acts as the location for the terrorist takeover is Fox Plaza, the then under construction HQ of 20th Century Fox in LA. 11 THE film spawned many imitator Speed was Die Hard on a bus, Under Siege was Die Hard on a boat, Under Siege 2 was Die Hard on a train, Passenger 57 was Die Hard on a plane. The Rock’s new film Skyscraper is Die Hard in another building. 12 SPEED director Jan de Bont was cinematographer on Die Hard and was stuck in a lift during the shoot. It inspired the opening sequence in the Keanu Reeves film. 13 DIE Hard 2: Die Harder was Die Hard in an airport. Later sequels featured New York, Washington, Moscow and Chernobyl for part five, A Good Day to Die Hard. 14 IN DIE Hard with a Vengeance, McClane chats to reluctant partner Zeus, played by Samuel L Jackson, about being on suspension and “smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.” It’s a line from the song Flowers on the Wall, which featured in Pulp Fiction in a scene featuring Willis’s character Butch. 15 IN DIE Hard 4.0, McClane meets FBI officer Agent Johnson, an in-joke referring to a pair of useless FBI agents, both called Johnson, in the original. 16 ONE of the film’s mistakes is when a news anchor describes Helsinki Syndrome, when referring to hostages sympathising with captors, as being from Sweden, and is then corrected that it should be Helsinki, Finland. It should be the Stockholm Syndrome, after the Swedish capital. 17 IN A scene where McClane hides under a table and shoots through the wood, the special effects were so loud he lost two thirds of the hearing in his left ear. 18 WHEN McClane ran barefoot across a room of broken glass, he wore rubber shoes disguised as feet. 19 21 PEOPLE die on screen in the course of the film. 20 LIVE Free or Die Hard was renamed Die Hard 4.0 for the UK market, as it’s about computer hackers. 21 IT’S also the most successful in the franchise, making $134million at the box office. 22 THE franchise has made a total of $502.4million. 23 THERE’S a gag in Friends about how Joey and Chandler adore Die Hard. But they fail to recognise Willis when he turns up in season six. 24 THE bloody vest from the film is on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. 25 WILLIS earned $5million for the first film. 26 IN SCENES when Gruber shoots anyone, you never see his face – apparently Rickman flinched everytime the blank went off. 27 WHEN McClane escapes down a ventilation shaft, he misses an opening he is aiming for and slips down to another. This was unscripted. 28 THE catchphrase “Yippee kay ay motherf ***** ” was invented by Willis on set to crack up the crew. It is used in all five films. 29 THE story was darker in the original script. 30 THE shot of a falling Gruber, after McClane drops him, shows Rickman in genuine terror. He had agreed to do the 40ft fall and was to be dropped at the count of three. On McTiernan’s instruction, the stunt man dropped him on “one” terrifying him. They had wisely left it to his last day of shooting.