Die Hard And Carry A Big Frenchman

Hey guys, it's Donnie...When I was in LA, a friend of mine interned at Cheyenne Enterprises, Bruce Willis's production company. Aside from getting a truckload of Hostage merchandise, he also got to read the script for Die Hard 4.0 (cuz the bad guys are computer hackers. Isn't that hip and edgy?) and he reported that the script was uninspiring to say the least. His take was that it was okay, but it didn't really live up to the Die Hard franchise. I'll buy that argument, particularly since I seem to remember hearing that they basically bought the rights to a spec script and then turned it into a Die Hard movie.

The film has been stalled for a while now, despite rumors that Brittany Spears was the favorite to play John McClane's daughter and Affleck was approached to play his new partner. Well it seems that the flick will maintain a holding pattern (much like an airplane circling over an airport...an airport taken hostage!) as it seems that the latest draft of the script called for a good portion of the action to take place in New Orleans and will now have to be re-worked in the wake of Katrina. Screw that! Die Hard in a hurricane? That'd be hilarious...

Anyway, despite the various delays, it seems that Fox still wants to get this thing in theaters sometime in 2006, which means they better start hustling. As such, rumors of directors have begun swirling, specifically rumors of French directors. There's talk that both Luc Besson (who directed Willis in The Fifth Element) and Florent Siri (who also directed Willis in Hostage) have been approached to take over the reins on this puppy. Besson has been out of the directing game for a while, focusing instead on writing and producing. Siri...well he ain't up to much these days, although I wasn't impressed enough with Hostage to hand him a franchise like Die Hard. Besson...well that could be beyond cool if they can actually get the guy to sit down behind the camera again. I love this franchise, despite the hiccup that was Die Hard 2: Die Harder, (Worst. Title. Ever.) and I'd love to see a really kick ass fourth installment that really put the franchise to bed once and for all. Hopefully they can get it in theaters before the 20th Anniversary Edition DVD of the first one...