The Secret History of Die Hard: Return to Hell

M6 continues its Die Hard cycle, so we continue to share its secret history again! Here is episode 4: Return to Hell.

Read the previous episode: A day in hell

1995. A Day in Hell of John McTiernan ends its French exploitation at 3,263,430 admissions, or five times more than for the first episode in 1988. This is (finally) the consecration for Bruce Willis and the saga Die Hard in the hexagon. Across the Atlantic, Fox immediately thinks of the continuation of the adventures of John McClane.

Even before the release ofA Day in Hell, Quentin Tarantino had proposed to Bruce Willis to make the next one, but his offer will remain unanswered (the studio had nevertheless offered Tarantino to make one of the clones of Die Hard, Speed). After the hell of the development of 3, many subjects are gathering dust in the cupboards of Fox, and it is precisely on one of them that the studio will stop: that of John Milius, which took place in the jungle (see previous episode). Titled Tears of the Sunthe script had been rejected, then taken up and modified so that it was no longer a Die Hard. John Woo was even supposed to make it his second American film, after Manhuntbut after six months of work, the filmmaker abandoned the project when he realized that no Hollywood star would agree to shoot for several months in the Australian jungle, in particularly difficult conditions.

The studio then decides to take the scenario again, to modify it to remake it Die Hard and in July 96, Fox officially announced its “Die Hard in the Jungle” In Daily Variety. Described as a “Deliverance in the Amazon Jungle”, the story was to tell the hijacking and crash of a plane in which McClane and his family were, followed by a manhunt led by mercenaries wishing to kill one of the passengers. One of the ideas in the script was for McClane to be poisoned, with a time limit to find the antidote and save the world!

Die Hard 4: Bruce Willis hasn't had a blast like this in a while (review)

A tone below
In September 1996, Andrew Vajna, producer of 3, stated that John McTiernan will not return to the helm of the franchise – the salary demanded by the filmmaker being considered exorbitant. Jan de Bont (Speed) And Michael Bay (Rock) are for a time considered to take over. And, after the success of Will Hunting and Armageddon in 1997 and 1998, Fox decided that Ben Affleck (who also plays with Bruce Willis In Armageddon) could be the ideal actor to play John McClane's son, always with the same scenario. But the difficulty in aligning the schedules of the two stars and, one imagines, the less than cordial understanding between Willis and Michael Bay, postponed the project which was ultimately abandoned. In 2000, to everyone's surprise, Variety announced that it was Rob Bowman (X Files) who could make Die Hard 4. Proof that the studio has decided to revise the ambitions of the saga downwards. A new scenario is written, still in a jungle context: John McClane's son is kidnapped by mercenaries in South Africa, and McClne must go save and repatriate him. September 11, 2001 put an end to the project, soon rewritten to become The sun's Teardrops (Tears Of The Sun) of Antoine Fuqua released in 2003, still with Bruce Willis.

Besson in hell
At the same time, and no one knows it yet, the script which will become Die Hard 4.0 is in development (since 1998) at Fox, with… Luc Besson ! It all starts from an article by the journalist John Carlin published in Wired, “A Farewell to Arms” which tells how we could wage a war without weapons, but with computers. Purchased by Fox, the article was quickly transformed into a screenplay by David Marconi (with working title WW3.com). Luc Besson is ready to shoot it… when September 11 buries the subject.

Two years later, Fox hires the screenwriter Mark Bomback to rewrite the scenario and transform it into a Die Hard. Bomback's version has many differences with the final script: John McClane is a wreck, divorced, and a subscriber to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He no longer works for the police, but for the Department of Homeland Security, where his job is to stop hackers who poke their noses into government affairs, a theoretically harmless job. Until the day when the hacker he takes on board turns out to have unwittingly participated in a “Fire Sale”, a cyber-attack on all computer and defense systems… The story takes McClane to New Orleans, where a train derailment and an explosion caused remotely by the evil cyber-terrorist Gabriel triggers a tidal wave that floods the city. (Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused this scene to disappear from the film).

John McTiernan: “John McClane is not a national hero”

Bruce Almighty?
The trouble is that Bruce Willis, is not convinced by the scenario (McClane has no personal stake and is content to be the muscles of the hacker he accompanies). He then asks Doug Richardson, his friend and author of the two previous episodes, a rewriting that he will try to impose on Fox. Richardson modifies the script while keeping the basic idea, and he makes the hacker McClane's son, Jack, whom our New York cop releases from prison after an incarceration for computer hacking.

Much more constructed than the final film, the scenario is divided into 3 days, methodically describing how computer terrorists decide to take the whole of America hostage, bringing the country back to the Dark Ages in a reminiscent of the end of Los Angeles 2013. McClane and Jack must escape both the police and government forces, whom they do not trust, and cyber-terrorists, who want to eliminate Jack because he knows too much. This version has all the elements of a Die Hard, and is worthy of the previous episodes of the saga: numerous secondary characters, all distinct and endearing, explosive action scenes, McClane alone against everyone, a plan behind the plan, dialogues by telephone, the intrusion and voyeurism of reporters, scenes of riots and martial law… One of the strongest images is that of army tanks invading Harlem. If Tom Rothman, the president of Fox, agrees to give Richardson a contract mainly so as not to offend the star, he prefers to put the script in a drawer!

“There is only one scene left from my script in Die Hard 4 Return to Hell” Richardson explained to us recently, “It is that of the theft of the car, which initially involved McClane and his son. This scene was there to illustrate the difference between their two methods, and show how out of place McClane's character is in today's world. What is curious is that ultimately, Beautiful day to die also features McClane's son, although I had nothing to do with it“. Tom Rothman in fact rejects the script, and succeeds in convincing Bruce Willis to do Bomback's, rewritten to respond to the star's apprehensions, using old ideas dating from the third episode (McClane's daughter kidnapped). Upon its release, the film enjoyed relative success (2,272,000 admissions in France, or a million less than the third part), mainly due to its attenuated violence (caught up in an unrated director's cut available on DVD and HD on the legal sites like iTunes or Vudu), while proving that the franchise still has wings. This was of course, before the release of Beautiful Day to Die…
By David Fakrikian