A Good Day to Die Hard should have been a franchise-killer.  It was almost completely devoid of merit, no longer understood the character, and the domestic box office wasn’t particularly overwhelming.  But like its title, you can’t easily nix the franchise, and work is underway on Die Hard 6.  Tentatively titled “Die Hardest“, Ben Trebilcook is reportedly writing a treatment, which means the project is still at a very early stage.  Trebilcook is currently at work on the videogame-themed action flick Knockout, which brought him into the orbit of A Good Day to Die Hard consulting producer, Larry D. Webster.  However, it’s worth noting that only Fox can authorize a new script, so either Webster is pursuing it on behalf of the studio, or there has been a misunderstanding between the parties involved.

Hit the jump for more.

This week on The Collision, we look back on the Die Hard franchise, its influences, its endearing characteristics, its legacy, and the latest film in the series, A Good Day to Die Hard.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“Steven Soderbergh and Side Effects“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

Before I dive headfirst into what could be considered overselling to the “nth degree”, I have a disclaimer: I’m a total sucker for nostalgia-inducing, high school-centric, coming of age films. With that out of the way, I cannot recommend enough that you watch author/writer/director Stephen Chboksy‘s adaptation of his own novel, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, as soon as possible. The pic hit Blu-ray/DVD this past week and over the course of 24 hours I rented it, watched it, loved it, returned it (yes, somehow late fees are still a thing…), and purchased it for my own collection. I could go on and on about the emotional note the movie hit for me at every turn but I’ll spare you the fanboy torment. Suffice to say that I’ll be looking back fondly on this one for quite a while.

My “Blu-ray/DVD pick of the week” aside, this week’s installment features a week of Die Hard that includes Matt revisiting the entire franchise and A Good Day to Die Hard interviews with Bruce Willis and more, coverage from Steve’s visit to the set of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, a slew of video interviews from this year’s VES Awards including talks with Ang Lee and Wally Pfister just to name a few, Beautiful Creatures interviews with Emmy Rossum and more, and a healthy amount of images from the floor of Toy Fair 2013. Yep, you guessed it, a brief recap and link to each of the above can be found on the other side.

The newest Die Hard movie, A Good Day to Die Hard, opened yesterday, and so we’ve teamed up with 20th Century Fox to give away limited edition infographic posters for the first four movies.  Each poster breaks down the body counts, explosions, plot points, and more for each film.  They posters are pretty neat, and we’re giving away sets to 10 lucky readers.  The posters are on high-quality paper and measure approximately 12″x16″.

Hit the jump to check out the posters, and to find out how to enter.  Be sure to check out my retrospective on Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Live Free or Die Hard plus my review of A Good Day to Die Hard.

Opening this weekend is director John Moore’s A Good Day to Die Hard.  The fifth Die Hard film has John McClane (Bruce Willis) teaming up with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), to settle their differences and take down the bad guys.   The film also stars Yulia Snigir, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sebastian Koch, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Anne Vyalitsyna.

During the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak with Yuliya Snigir. We talked about her love of chess, transitioning from modeling to acting, her audition process, and more.  In addition, we also talked about her other upcoming movies like Delirium and Freezer.  Hit the jump to watch.

This week, I’ve looked back at the Die Hard series, and I can say without hesitation that of the ones that are currently available on Blu-ray, three of the four are worth owning.  Because A Good Day to Die Hard just hit theaters, Fox has released Die Hard: 25th Anniversary Collection, which is a five-disc collection featuring the first four Die Hard films (Die Hard / Die Hard 2: Die Harder / Die Hard with a Vengeance / Live Free or Die Hard), and an all-new bonus disc, “Decoding Die Hard.” The set is Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day for $25.00 (58% off $59.99), so it’s worth a purchase if you don’t own these films on Blu-ray.  It also comes with a reward code to see A Good Day to Die Hard, but see the film at your own risk.

And in case you missed it, Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection is still $129.99 (57% off $299.99), so click here to go pick it up.

Opening this weekend is director John Moore’s A Good Day to Die Hard.  The fifth Die Hard film has John McClane (Bruce Willis) teaming up with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), to settle their differences and take down the bad guys.   The film also stars Yulia Snigir, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sebastian Koch, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Anne Vyalitsyna.

During the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak with Jai Courtney. We talked about the audition process, the biggest surprise making the movie, working with Bruce Willis, Spartacus, I, Frankenstein, and more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Over the last few days, I’ve looked back at the Die Hard franchise, and tried to explain what makes these films unique.  The obvious answer is John McClane (Bruce Willis).  Willis helped to craft a memorable character who was the wise-cracking, scrappy, desperate hero we can all root for.  But it’s not simply an attitude.  Die Hard is a matter of circumstance and response, and the two best films—Die Hard and Die Hard with a Vengeance—back McClane into a corner and force him to rely on his wits and strength to survive.  He gets the shit kicked out of him, swears constantly, but laughs in the face of near death.  John McClane’s personality lives in A Good Day to Die Hard.  Everything else dies horribly.

[With A Good Day to Die Hard set to open this Thursday, we'll be taking a look back at the first four Die Hard movies.  These reviews will contain spoilers since the movies have been out for years.  Click on the respective links for my look back at Die Hard, Die Hard 2, and Die Hard with a Vengeance.]

The longest gap between Die Hard movies was the 12 years between Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Live Free or Die Hard (2007).  In the interim, the world had drastically changed most notably because of 9/11 and developments in communications technology.  No longer could terrorism be casually mentioned as a guise for a heist, and John McClane (Bruce Willis) wouldn’t be running around looking for the nearest pay phone.  As Live Free villain Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) says to McClane, “You’re a Timex watch in a digital age.”  It’s a crappy metaphor since Timex has been making digital watches for decades, but the sentiment is noteworthy: Is John McClane a relic?  The question doesn’t really matter since Live Free or Die Hard barely qualifies as a Die Hard film, especially with Willis’ bored performance and the PG-13 rating.  Instead, Live Free is best explored as the way a Die Hard movie would approach terrorism if a Die Hard film was directed by a hand-tied fan who didn’t understand the essence of the franchise.

[With A Good Day to Die Hard set to open this Thursday, we'll be taking a look back at the first four Die Hard movies.  These reviews will contain spoilers since the movies have been out for years.  Click on the respective links for my look back at Die Hard and Die Hard 2.]

I like to consider Die Hard with a Vengeance the true sequel to Die Hard.  It’s bigger, bolder, darker, but still retains the same sense of desperation, humor, and intensity of the first movie.  Unlike Die Hard 2, the purpose of Die Hard with a Vengeance isn’t to copy the plot elements of the first film, but to take the spirit of the original and paint it on a broader canvas.  Die Hard with a Vengeance takes what could have been a stolid, safe entry, and instead shakes up the formula to keep John McClane (Bruce Willis) alive and kicking, which is impressive for a guy who should have died many times over.

Opening this weekend is director John Moore’s A Good Day to Die Hard.  The fifth Die Hard film has John McClane (Bruce Willis) teaming up with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), to settle their differences and take down the bad guys.   The film also stars Yulia Snigir, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Sebastian Koch, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke, and Anne Vyalitsyna.

During the recent Los Angeles press day I got to speak with Bruce Willis.  We talked about how John McClane is one of the most popular characters in movie history, what McClane is up to in the fifth installment, how the first Die Hard had one of the best movie villains and that they never should have killed him, and more.  In addition, Willis talked about Sin City 2 and what it will take to get him to work with Luc Besson again.  Hit the jump to watch.

[With A Good Day to Die Hard set to open this Thursday, we'll be taking a look back at the first four Die Hard movies.  These reviews will contain spoilers since the movies have been out for years.  Click here for my look back at the first Die Hard.]

There wasn’t a shred of doubt that after Die Hard became one of the biggest hits of 1988, a sequel wouldn’t be far behind.  Two years later, Die Hard 2 (with the tagline “Die Harder”, although this is sometimes erroneously believed to be part of the title) opened and became one of the biggest hits of 1990.  But the rush came with a lack of ingenuity, and Die Hard 2 is mostly a retread.  Rather than focusing on John McClane (Bruce Willis) as the outsider, Die Hard 2 is about how he can’t catch a break.  It has to be due to the chronological proximity to the first movie.  However, while the sequel lacks originality, its biggest problem is misunderstanding the motives of McClane, and ignoring the conflict between his drive to do the right thing, and once again saving his wife.

20th Century Fox has released a new clip from director John Moore’s sequel A Good Day to Die Hard, and it demonstrates exactly why it’s probably not a good idea to think you can best a helicopter full of guns.  Bruce Willis’s John McClane and Jai Courtney’s Jack McClane square off against said helicopter in this clip, giving fans a tease of the kind of action they can expect from the fifth film in the Die Hard franchise.  I’ll say this: the CG effects don’t look terrible.

Hit the jump to watch the new clip, and if you missed it click here to read the first entry in Matt’s ongoing Die Hard retrospective series.  The film also stars Sebastian Koch, Yulia Snigir, Cole Hauser, Amaury Nolasco, Megalyn Echikunwoke, Anne Vyalitsyna, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead.  A Good Day to Die Hard opens Thursday, February 14th.

[With A Good Day to Die Hard set to open this Thursday, we'll be taking a look back at the first four Die Hard movies.  These reviews will contain spoilers since the movies have been out for years.]

When I hear the words “best action movie”, I immediately think of Die Hard.  No other film even comes close.  It is pure action removed from sci-fi or any other genre.  Even though there were plenty of blockbuster action movies in the 1980s, Die Hard is unique in how it constantly puts its hero at a massive disadvantage.  To the extent that a blockbuster will allow, John McClane (Bruce Willis) is the everyman.  Schwarzenegger and Stallone were the physically imposing heroes, but Willis brought a scrappy quality to McClane even though the character’s actions verged on superhuman.  Although he’s very hard to kill, McClane is both the reluctant hero and the ideal 1980s American hero.  From its unforgettable protagonist, Die Hard took on an identity that made it distinct and enduring.

It’s been 25 years since Die Hard exploded into theaters, launching a new cinematic hero and changing the paradigm of action movies.  In A Good Day to Die Hard, Bruce Willis reprises his iconic role as police detective John McClane.  Set against the backdrop of deadly corruption and political vendetta in Russia, McClane teams up with his estranged son, Jack (Jai Courtney), to settle their differences and take down the bad guys.  The film, which opens in theaters on February 14^th, also features Sebastian Koch and Yulia Snigir.

At the recent press day, Willis, Courtney and director John Moore talked about why it was time for another Die Hard movie, what makes the McClane character so appealing to audiences, the origin of the signature line, taking the franchise to another country for the first time, and using Mi-24 assault helicopters in the action sequences.  Willis also discussed what it’s meant to him personally to play one of the greatest action characters in film history, why being a father is his favorite job, and how his real life experience has enabled him to play a great on screen dad.  Hit the jump to read more.