Give It Up For the Man Who Took Out a Full-Page Ad to Pitch an Elaborate Die Hard Sequel
Yippee ki-yay, motherf*ckers!
There’s a Die Hard prequel currently in development, which we’re pretty psyched about. Know who isn’t psyched though? Screenwriter Eric D. Wilkinson, the guy who took out a full page ad in The Hollywood Reporter to say that he thinks the idea of a Die Hard prequel is dumb — and to pitch an elaborate Die Hard sequel of his own.
This masterpiece, “An open letter to: Bruce Willis, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Len Wiseman and the makers of Die Hard,” came to our attention after it was initially noticed on Twitter. It starts off passionately: “I withdrew money I don’t really have from my savings to reach out to you today to tell you that I love the movie Die Hard. Let me say that again…I LOVE DIE HARD.” Yeah dude, we get it.
In an attempt to convince the writers and producers to scrap their plans for a lackluster Die Hard prequel, Wilkinson outlined the plot for a film he calls Die Hard: Year One. Here’s a brief summary: It opens with John McClane being carted off to jail, flashing back to his work investigating the murder of a kid when he was a just 24-year-old rookie cop on the streets of New York. His suspect runs away and the case runs cold before we flashforward to McClane rescuing his son in Russia (as seen in A Good Day to Die Hard) some 34 years later. Meanwhile, back in the United States, some DNA turns up that links McClane to the very cold case he’d investigated decades ago, which means he’s arrested as soon as he hits American soil and thrown into a huge prison noted for housing notorious Middle Eastern terrorists (???). And then there’s a prison riot that serves as cover for another terrorist attack (?????), and since McClane’s in the mix, well, old habit die hard. Check it out:
Die Hard is a franchise that’s been mangled over the years by increasingly confusing and ridiculous sequels, but something tells us Wilkinson’s on to something. We’ll see if Bruce Willis feels the same way.
Photos by Everett Collection
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