Movies With Butter

Between 1988 and 1995, Bruce Willis filmed a trilogy of Die Hard movies, and although each installment in the series amped up the action to progressively sillier levels (an upward curve that broke right off the graph with the belatedly delivered fourth and fifth chapters), those first three films are seen by many fans as the best in the franchise. The original, of course, is an unassailable, hugely influential classic; the second, while heavily derivative, is still charming, and the third is a half-brilliant disassembling of Bruce Willis' wisecracking Detective John McClane.

It's that third installment, Die Hard with a Vengeance, that's proven most divisive for Die Hard fans over the years, partly because for a long time, it seemed like it was destined to be the final sequel. While it benefits from Willis' exquisitely rumpled performance as McClane in the midst of another very bad day, the final act is a godawful mess that's only saved by Willis' chemistry with his Vengeance partner, Samuel L. Jackson -- and since Jackson has openly expressed a willingness to re-team with Willis for a follow-up, rumors of a reunion have persisted over the years, most recently courtesy of screenwriter Ben Trebilcook, who claimed to have submitted a treatment for a sequel that would bring McClane and Zeus Carver, Jackson's character, to the site of the original movie's terrorist attack.

Now we have word that Fox is "meeting writers for takes" on a new Die Hard sequel, with the provision that "It has to involve John McClane AND Samuel Jackson's Zeus Carver character!" The news comes courtesy of Latino Review reporter El Mayimbe, so it's probably worth taking with a grain of salt; LR's track record when it comes to rumors is somewhat spotty. On the other hand, Willis is no stranger to paycheck roles, and in recent years, he's definitely shown a propensity for projects that require him to do less heavy lifting than the old days. A Jackson-assisted Die Hard 6 could fit both bills handily while satisfying fan nostalgia and (theoretically) riding its stars' chemistry into a halfway decent franchise finale.

Until the Die Hard reboot in 2018, anyway.

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