DIE HARD 5 Signs New Director

[AndyDursin]

EXCLUSIVE: Die Hard 5 is moving toward the start gate at 20th Century Fox. I’m told the studio will set Noam Murro to direct the film that has been scripted by Skip Woods. They will continue to develop the script. While Murro directed the Sarah Jessica Parker-starrer Smart People for Miramax. Murro really impressed Fox brass with his most recent campaign for the Halo video game. He’s a five time DGA nominated commercials director, won two Golden Lions at Cannes and is taking a big leap up to one of Fox’s most important projects. The studio still has to make a deal with Bruce Willis, but he has publicly expressed excitement about reprising his signature John McClane role. Willis showed he had plenty left in the tank with Live Free Or Die Hard, the Len Wiseman-directed 2007 sequel that grossed $383.5 million worldwide.

As Deadline first revealed on November 11, Willis and Rebecca Hall will team on Lay the Favorite, the Stephen Frears-directed adaptation of the Beth Raymer memoir that was adapted by DV De Vincentis. Murro is repped by CAA and Management 360.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/02/noam-mu ... ie-hard-5/

[Monterey Jack]

Who?

[Paul MacLean]

Y'know...I actually forgot there had been a Die Hard 4.

[Eric W.]

Y'know...I actually forgot there had been a Die Hard 4.

It was pretty good. Fun romp. Didn't try to take itself too seriously and Bruce didn't pretend he was 20 years old.


We'll see what this is worth.

[AndyDursin]

At least the fourth movie was better than DIE HARD SUCKS WITH A VENGEANCE.

Never been a fan of that film. At all.

[Monterey Jack]

At least the fourth movie was better than DIE HARD SUCKS WITH A VENGEANCE.

Never been a fan of that film. At all.

And yet, anytime the Die Hard movies are mentioned, it's always Die Hard 2 that gets singled out as "the bad one", despite the excellent reviews that greeted Die Harder when it was first released.

[DavidBanner]

Die Hard 4.0 worked better in the unrated DVD cut, to be honest. The PG-13 theatrical cut felt like it was holding back.

I would hope that with a further sequel, they would try to bring back a couple of the characters from the earlier films, depending on where it is set.

The last I heard, Len Wiseman was going to direct DH5, but I suppose that fell apart when it took over 4 years to figure out what to do.

I actually really enjoyed the first 45 minutes or so of Die Hard 3, up to the point where, as Jeremy Irons put it, "the plot thickens." The earlier challenges were played pretty well, and I liked the fact that they shot the heck out of New York City, from end to end. Once the actual villain's plot got going, though, the challenges got to the point that there was simply no way for McClane to survive. I will grant that the movie taught me the best elephant joke ever, and provided a great wrinkle on the "St. Ives" rhyme.

Die Hard 2 still has a lot of issues, in that its villain simply isn't that compelling. Bill Sadler gives the best performance he can, but he doesn't have that much to work with, and he simply isn't at the same level as an Alan Rickman or a Jeremy Irons. (To the same point, Timothy Olyphant feels out of his league going up against McClane in 4.0) Much of the script of DH2 just isn't that good - it sounds like an early Steven De Souza draft without almost any nuance to it. That said, the plane crash sequence is one of the scariest things in any of the movies short of Gruber executing Takagi in the first film. I remember a review at the time that lambasted DH2, but noted that the plane crash stopped the audience in its tracks.

BTW one fun note that comes out of the Kevin Smith interview with Willis on the Blu-ray - Willis refers to the still-standing office building in Century City used as the Nakatomi Tower for the first film as "The Joe Takagi Memorial Building". Nice.

[Monterey Jack]

That said, the plane crash sequence is one of the scariest things in any of the movies short of Gruber executing Takagi in the first film. I remember a review at the time that lambasted DH2, but noted that the plane crash stopped the audience in its tracks.

That scene still makes me wince (along with the infamous "icicle in the eye" gag ). Proof that blowing up physical models will always trump CGI (witness the atrocious plane crash sequence at the end of Air Force One, released seven years later).

[AndyDursin]

And yet, anytime the Die Hard movies are mentioned, it's always Die Hard 2 that gets singled out as "the bad one", despite the excellent reviews that greeted Die Harder when it was first released.

I have no idea how or where that started. Another of those "internet fanboy" myths that eventually becomes accepted as gospel amongst the uninformed (just like SUPERMAN III was as much of a bomb as SUPERMAN IV -- another case of revisionist history).

I mean -- Gene Siskel had DIE HARD 2 on his Ten Best list for the year! DIE HARD 2 works for me nearly as well as the original -- I certainly can't say the same about III.

Plenty of people disliked DIE HARD 3. I was one of them, sitting in the audience at the preview screening next to dozens of fellow movie-goers yawning throughout the whole bloated midsection of that film. Remember the interminable sequence where Irons and his cronies unload the gold? It felt like it would NEVER end. And that cheap, embarrassing ending, which was tacked on at the last minute, was utterly laughable. I also found Jackson's character to be strident and the interplay with Willis forced...not to mention the North Carolina location shooting which didn't quite work when it was supposed to stand in for NYC.

Really McTiernan was on the downward slope when he made that movie and it showed in his direction. It didn't even seem to have been made by the same guy who did the first film.

[DavidBanner]

Andy, I'll admit I'm no expert on New York City, but I was born in the state, and I've been there most recently in 2002, when I took the subway to the WTC site and then walked most of the way across Manhattan. I couldn't tell you which locations were actually done in North Carolina, but it looked to me like there was a LOT of NYC in that movie - from Wall Street to the drive across the city to get there, to the Harlem sequence (which I understand they had to change the lettering on the sign to avoid trouble...) to that great opening shot of all the traffic getting disrupted by the department store. But I don't live theref , so I wouldn't know if they snuck a lot of other material in. Can you tell me which sequences were done out of state - not counting the finale, which was theoretically supposed to be Montreal or Quebec?

[Monterey Jack]

And yet, anytime the Die Hard movies are mentioned, it's always Die Hard 2 that gets singled out as "the bad one", despite the excellent reviews that greeted Die Harder when it was first released.

I have no idea how or where that started. Another of those "internet fanboy" myths that eventually becomes accepted as gospel amongst the uninformed (just like SUPERMAN III was as much of a bomb as SUPERMAN IV -- another case of revisionist history).

Also Temple Of Doom being the worst of the pre-Crystal Skull Indiana Jones movies. What?! Worse than the made-for-TV cinematography, poor greenscreen effects, and endless slapstick buffoonery of Last Crusade?

[AndyDursin]

Also Temple Of Doom being the worst of the pre-Crystal Skull Indiana Jones movies. What?! Worse than the made-for-TV cinematography, poor greenscreen effects, and endless slapstick buffoonery of Last Crusade?

"Made for TV cinematography"??

Well I disagree with you there. For me TEMPLE OF DOOM was the weakest of the original Raiders films before the abomination of Shia LaBeouf -- scant plot, grating love interest, obnoxious kid sidekick, too many gross-out effects, and far too long spent in the Temple. The pacing of the film grinded to a halt there before it picked up with the mine cart sequence and that great ending -- getting there, the midsection of that movie where Indy "goes bad" just didn't work for me anyway. And it was too dark for the kind of film it was -- I don't know what Spielberg was thinking about, but he was right to say he misjudged the audience there.

A whole lot of critics also loved the opening "Anything Goes" number and felt it was all downhill from there...I wouldn't entirely agree with that, I still love the movie in spite of the problems I have with it, but I do prefer LAST CRUSADE over it by a big margin myself.

[AndyDursin]

David there was one sequence, can't remember when it was now, where you should see marshes and the like, which would never have been in NYC. I'd have to look it up.

[Eric W.]

Also Temple Of Doom being the worst of the pre-Crystal Skull Indiana Jones movies. What?! Worse than the made-for-TV cinematography, poor greenscreen effects, and endless slapstick buffoonery of Last Crusade?

"Made for TV cinematography"??

I think someone went without sleep again. What the hell?

I'd love to know what TV shows look as good as that thing still does even now.


Of course some of the special effects have aged and some not quite well.

They've got their work cut out for them getting the Indys ready for Blu, that's for sure.

Well I disagree with you there. For me TEMPLE OF DOOM was the weakest of the original Raiders films before the abomination of Shia LaBeouf -- scant plot, grating love interest, obnoxious kid sidekick, too many gross-out effects, and far too long spent in the Temple. The pacing of the film grinded to a halt there before it picked up with the mine cart sequence and that great ending -- getting there, the midsection of that movie where Indy "goes bad" just didn't work for me anyway. And it was too dark for the kind of film it was -- I don't know what Spielberg was thinking about, but he was right to say he misjudged the audience there.

A whole lot of critics also loved the opening "Anything Goes" number and felt it was all downhill from there...I wouldn't entirely agree with that, I still love the movie in spite of the problems I have with it, but I do prefer LAST CRUSADE over it by a big margin myself.

Thank you for saving me some typing. Certainly Last Crusade is far from being flawless but I'll take it any day of the week over Temple and especially the 4th film which basically doesn't exist to me anyways.

I haven't seen Temple in years and frankly I don't care if I ever see it again.

[AndyDursin]

Thank you for saving me some typing. Certainly Last Crusade is far from being flawless but I'll take it any day of the week over Temple and especially the 4th film which basically doesn't exist to me anyways.

I love all the original Indy films, don't misunderstand me. But I am a huge fan of LAST CRUSADE. The film's humor played tremendously with audiences, the opening with River Phoenix by itself was a bravura standalone sequence, and I found the plot -- even if it recycled Raiders -- to be sufficiently engaging.

But what I most admire about the film is the interplay between Ford and Connery. They're just brilliant together, and the added emotional, human dimension of their relationship is what was completely missing from TEMPLE OF DOOM.

I mean, TEMPLE OF DOOM is the funhouse ride. It's all jolts and shocks most of the way, and I do mean it when I say I found Kate Capshaw grating in that movie. Let's not forget Willard Huyuck and Gloria Katz had written that script with Lucas, some of their humor ("Monkey Brains!") was infantile also...but that didn't bother me so much. Every time I see the movie, though, that turn towards the dark side with the heart being ripped out and Indy going bad just seems ill-judged on Spielberg's part. I still find the film tremendously entertaining, but I find LAST CRUSADE to be a return to the model of RAIDERS with the added benefit of seeing Ford and Connery at the top of their game together.

Not only that, but it should have been the end for the series. The ending felt like a finite conclusion, it looked and played like one -- riding off into the sunset, literally, is how it should've ended.

Of course some of the special effects have aged and some not quite well.

I'm not sure what MJ is getting at there either. It's a movie from 1989!

Personally I have no problem with them whatsoever. It's the CGI crap in KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL that looks so out of place, especially from a stylistic comparison with the first three movies.

You only had to see that trailer to know that movie was going to suck. And it did.

They've got their work cut out for them getting the Indys ready for Blu, that's for sure.

Unless they're going to remaster/enhance the effects (please don't!), they are what they are. Movies of the '80s.

Another case of them just waiting for critical mass in the format -- or another sequel to find that "right time" to release them.