{"id":35589,"date":"2024-04-07T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-07T12:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=35589"},"modified":"2025-08-31T16:16:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T20:16:29","slug":"die-hard-trivia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=35589","title":{"rendered":"“Die Hard” Trivia!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rob Hunter at Film School Rejects posted 37 Things We Learned from Steven E. de Souza\u2019s \u2018Die Hard\u2019<\/em> Commentary.<\/strong> (Sadly the piece is no longer available.)<\/em> But here are three of my favorites and my thoughts on each…<\/p>\n

8. Sinatra was actually the first of many actors to decline the role. \u201cYou have to view this movie in the context of the time it was made. In the 1980s there had been all these action movies with these muscular, steroid, pumped up, roid rage heroes.\u201d He adds that he played a role in that, \u201cmea culpa,\u201d as a reference to films like Commando (1985) and The Running Man (1987). The only one he mentions by title, though, is 1985\u2019s Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) \u2014 which he didn\u2019t write. The point being that McClane spends a big chunk of the time trying to hide and call the cops, something action stars of the decade weren\u2019t too keen on. \u201cSo in that context, this guy is a coward, he\u2019s a pussy.\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>(The fact that McClane didn’t act like an action hero made him more believable.\u00a0 It made the film better. – Craig)<\/em><\/p>\n

12. After Sinatra said no, Fox took the script to other stars, but they were turned down by \u201cArnold, then Sly, then Clint Eastwood, then Mel Gibson, then Richard Gere, then Don Johnson, then Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell, James Caan, and Burt Reynolds who was a Hail Mary call from our producer.\u201d In desperation, the studio made the offer to Willis whose management was well aware of the film\u2019s hard release date \u2014 and negotiated a killer deal as a result.<\/strong> (I believe Willis ended up getting $5million for his role.\u00a0 It was interesting that when the movie was first being advertised it didn’t focus on him being the star. The feeling was that the studio had waaay overpaid.\u00a0 Turns out they got a bargain. – Craig)<\/em><\/p>\n

7. The novel is actually a sequel to 1960\u2019s The Detective, also based on a Thorp novel, which stars Frank Sinatra in the lead role. When Fox moved forward on Die Hard they has to approach Sinatra and offered him the role. \u201cHe said \u2018I\u2019m too old and too rich to do this, and the chases in the building would have to be on Rascal scooters.’\u201d The character names were all changed to sever that connection, and they also took the opportunity to age down the retired cop character to a younger, active police officer.\u00a0<\/strong>(I am so glad that Sinatra had the good sense to pass.\u00a0 I’ve read the novel (NOTHING LASTS FOREVER) and it isn’t near as good as “Die Hard” turned out to be.\u00a0 As you’ll see if you click over to Hunter’s article, many of the things fans love about “Die Hard” happened by accident or good luck. Everything came together to make a classic movie. – Craig)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rob Hunter at Film School Rejects posted 37 Things We Learned from Steven E. de Souza\u2019s \u2018Die Hard\u2019 Commentary. (Sadly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,51,54,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-crime","category-movies","category-trivia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35589"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39835,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35589\/revisions\/39835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}