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Fan Buys Full Page Ad To Pitch Amazing Die Hard Sequel Script

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Fan Buys Full Page Ad To Pitch Amazing Die Hard Sequel Script

Trending News: Fan Idea For Die Hard Sequel Is Absolutely Genius

Why Is This Important?

Because this could be the best Die Hard movie since the original.

Long Story Short

Taking out a full-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter, an independent film writer presented a script idea for yet another Die Hard sequel. Unlike some of the more recent attempts, the idea is... actually pretty good!

Long Story

Trying to get attention as any kind of writer can be an exercise in futility, presumably because anyone with money to spend on writing assumes that just about anyone can coherently put words on a page (this is not true). Getting noticed in Hollywood is even harder, because while there are thousands of screenwriters trying to sell their scripts, movies are way too expensive for studios to take a chance on an unknown. If waiting tables and surreptitiously dropping your script off with the check isn't working for you, consider what independent film writer Eric Wilkinson did: He took out a full-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter to pitch his idea for a Die Hard sequel.

The stunt is getting traction on Twitter because unlike other Die Hard sequels, Wilkinson's concept is shockingly good. It's a known fact that the next Die Hard sequel will probably be an origin story of sorts for John McLane, but the problem is that a straight-up prequel would likely minimize Bruce Willis' role as the iconic character. A huge fan of the series, Wilkinson found a way to have the best of both worlds: The film would open with a present-day McLane en route to a prison for unknown reasons. Then we head back to 1979 for the so-called "origin story," where we learn that McLane's disdain for the rules causes him to lose the trail of a murder suspect. When the suspect is found dead during the events of A Good Day to Die Hard, evidence suggests McLane is the culprit, hence the trip up the river.

Of course the prison is full of bad guys (including terrorists), and of course McLane's wife finds evidence exonerating him and decides to bring it to the prison instead of an attorney. And then of course a riot happens, which is of course actually a ruse to spring the terrorists, and of course they don't realize that McLane will literally die if he goes too long without foiling a terrorist plot. Or, as Wilkinson puts it, “However, the one thing [the] terrorists didn’t count on was the one man who is always in the wrong place at the wrong time…and when it comes to John McClane, old habits die hard.” 

I'd watch the shit out of that. The world is waiting, Hollywood.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Is Bruce Willis too old to play a convincing John McLane?

Disrupt Your Feed: My vote is for Joseph Gordon Levitt as a young John McLane; it worked well in Looper.

Drop This Fact: The original Die Hard was filmed in 20th Century Fox's actual headquarters — they had to apologize constantly for the sound of gunfire, and the studio charged themselves rent for the space.

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