Bruce Willis’s next Die Hard movie – the sixth in the series – could be an origins story in which the ageing action hero stars alongside a younger actor as battling New York cop John McClane, reports Deadline.
Len Wiseman, who oversaw the fourth instalment in the long-running franchise, 2007’s Die Hard 4.0 (known as Live Free or Die Hard in the US), looks set to return as director. Much of the action would take place in 1979, showing McClane’s first forays into crime-fighting, with Willis as an older version of the character in the present day.
The setup is not without precedent. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with the help of prosthetics, played the younger version of Bruce Willis’s time-travelling hitman in Rian Johnson’s Looper. The new Die Hard film would effectively act as a prequel and sequel simultaneously, and would leave open the possibility of the younger actor taking over the role for future instalments.
Despite derisive reviews for 2013 instalment A Good Day to Die Hard, the five-film action series remains a key franchise for studio 20th Century Fox, having grossed more than $1.4bn (£900m) worldwide. Wiseman’s Die Hard 4.0 is the highest-grossing movie in the saga, having taken $383.5m (£248m) off the back of strong reviews.
Willis has a number of unreleased films set to debut, including megabudget Chinese war epic The Bombing, action thriller Extraction and crime thriller Marauders.
