After more than five years of planning, the sixth installment of Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, has been at a standstill. Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura confirmed that after Disney merged with Fox in 2019, the project of a prequel to Die Hard: Year One, already titled "Die Hard: Year One," was abandoned.
Di Bonaventura revealed: "The film was indeed cancelled. The birth of this project is very interesting, at first we did not plan to do a movie related to "Die Hard", but in the end it gradually became "Die Hard". ”
Originally planned to be played by Bruce Willis as John McLean, "Die Hard 6" will no longer be a simple sequel or prequel like the previous works, he will use a double timeline to parallel the past and the present story, so Bruce Willis will not be a simple cameo in this work, he will be one of the real stars. The plot structure will transition between the modern timeline and the 1970s. The crew had planned to find other actors to play the younger version of McLean to explore the character's early experience as a police officer in New York.
"The interesting thing about our idea is that the film was able to give viewers a glimpse of young John McLean and still starred Bruce," Dibonaventura said. "That's really fun. So you can see two different versions of John McLean. Kind of like Godfather 2. ”
The sequel even invited The Conjuring writers Chad Hayes and Kelly Hayes to rewrite the script. In addition, it was reported that Len Wiseman, the director of "Die Hard 4", had originally planned to return to the sequel. However, the project was shelved after Disney acquired Fox in 2019.
In the Die Hard movie series, he bleeds almost every battle, even limps, and tries to survive an opponent whose firepower is so far apart, so I'm not sure if "Super Soldier Cop" is really an apt description.
The last time Bruce Willis played John McLean appeared on screen was in 2013's Die Hard 5: Transnational Rescue. The film reportedly had a production budget of $92 million and grossed $304.7 million worldwide. The film's box office performance was mediocre, resulting in a sequel not being put on the agenda very quickly.