You wouldn’t be alone in thinking that “Die Hard: Year One” sounds like a horrible idea. Having Bruce Willis’ John McClane back in the ‘70s doing his ‘Die Hard’ thing just isn’t very interesting and is the antithesis of the franchise. The entire selling point on the first, and absolutely classic, “Die Hard” is the idea that McClane is in way over his head and is the quintessential “everyman.”
But that hasn’t deterred filmmaker Len Wiseman, who is still working on the script for the upcoming ‘Year One.’ And in a new interview with Slash Film, he discusses what the structure of the film will be, plus just how they’ll decide who to cast as the young John McClane.
Wiseman describes the plot of the film as being two stories, told in parallel. Similar to “The Godfather Part II” (my comparison, not his), the story will alternate between the ‘70s setting and present day, giving us two versions of the classic McClane character.
“The core idea has not [changed] at all,” Wiseman said. “It’s still working in parallel, cutting back and forth, what we see in the ‘70s has ramifications on present day Bruce. That hasn’t changed at all.”
And because we’re getting some prequel flavor in the film, we can expect the young versions of all the characters we know and love. The director confirms that means we will probably see a young Holly Gennero, the on-again, off-again spouse of McClane, who hasn’t been seen in a film since “Die Hard 2.”
“There is [a young Holly],” Wiseman said. “I will tell you there is.”
Does that mean we’ll get a reunion in the present day with McClane and his estranged wife? “There may very well be [a reunion],” Wiseman added.
As for who we might see playing the young Bruce Willis, no actor has been chosen yet. However, when the time comes, Willis will have a large say in the decision, and Wiseman says that’s due to both he and the actor’s insistence.
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Now, this is far from the first time we’ve talked about ‘Year One,’ as the film has been in development for years. Don’t be deterred by the long development, though. Wiseman says the film will definitely happen. He’s just waiting for the script to be perfect instead of falling into a situation that doomed his previous “Die Hard” entry, “Live Free or Die Hard.”
“’Die Hard’s’ going to be happening fairly soon,” Wiseman said. “No dates. I’ve been asked about dates before and I’m always wrong. The date is when the script is right which is when we all want to go. The script has taken quite a long time. I want it to be right, as everybody does. The truth is we started prepping ‘Live Free or Die Hard’ when the script was not ready. That process of working on the script as we were shooting the movie is not the funnest thing in the world to do. We pulled it together but nobody wants to go through that again.”