Running the Asylum: Arguably one of the biggest fans of the Die Hard franchise is... Bruce Willis. He apparently feels very strongly about not insulting the viewers' intelligence, and while his self-appointed "gatekeeper of the franchise" role makes directors cry, among other things it resulted in the villain of the fourth film actually getting a fully fleshed-out backstory (rather than what Willis described as a scene of "MySpace and cheerleader porn jokes").
In a way, the first movie also counts: the book that it's based on, Nothing Lasts Forever published in 1979, was a sequel to The Detective, which was made into a film starring Frank Sinatra in 1968. Die Hard didn't come out for another two decades.
What Could Have Been: The sixth film. Initially announced as Die Hardest and intended to be the Grand Finale to the series, it eventually resurfaced as McClane, a prequel/sequel hybrid taking place in both the 1970s and the modern-day. Development stalled out, with the underperformance of A Good Day to Die Hard and difficulties in casting an actor for the younger John McClane being blamed, but the final nail in the coffin appears to have been Disney's buyout of 20th Century Studios in 2019, whom reportedly canned the film among other projects. Bruce Willis retiring from acting in 2022 after being diagnosed with dementia and aphasia is almost assuredly the final nail in the coffin for any future sequels.
You Look Familiar: Before playing NYPD Officer Ricky Walsh in the third film, Anthony Peck previously had a bit part as a (different) cop in the first film.
Trivia for the first Die Hard:
Ability over Appearance: Only a couple of the actors who played the German terrorists were actually German, and only a couple more could speak broken German; Tony, Fritz and James were the only ones played by native Germans. The actors were cast for their menacing appearances rather than their nationality. Ten of the thirteen were over six feet tall.
According toChristopher McQuarrie, the villains were originally going to wear camouflage gear. It was Alan Rickman who suggested they wear suits, suggesting a potential meeting between the hero and villain.
John McTiernan had wanted Ellis to be suave like Cary Grant, but Hart Bochner conceived of the character's motivations coming from cocaine use and insecurity. McTiernan hated the performance initially until he noticed Laurence Gordon and Joel Silver were entertained by Bochner's antics
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: Hans' quote on Alexander the Great. The original quote (from John Calvin in 1557) is actually "Alexander of Macedon, who, upon hearing that there were other worlds, wept that he had not yet conquered one", though this would fit in with Hans' posturing and delusions of grandeur.
Blooper: The second shot of the terrorists firing the rocket launcher is clearly a closeup version of the first, since the window is seen shattering and the terrorists wouldn't have been able to move the launcher as it was bolted down.
Completely Different Title: The original title, an English idiom, is hard to translate correctly, as it would sound like "It is hard to kill him" or "He dies slowly". That's why we have:
Czech Republic and Slovakia: "Lethal Trap" (which may often confuse people as Lethal Weapon, as the Czech title of said film was translated literally)
France and Italy: "Crystal Trap"
Germany: "Stirb langsam" ("Die Slowly" - as an imperative. "Nicht totzukriegen" would be quite true to the original, but sounds too silly)
Hungary: "Give your life expensive". The title of the sequel is "Your life is more expensive", and the third part is "The life is always expensive".
Norway: "Aksjon Skyskraper" (Action Skyscraper)
Poland: "The Glass Trap" (which sounds and fits very well in the language, but does not make sense for sequels).
Portugal: "Assalto ao Arranha-Céus" ("Skyscraper Heist").
Russia: "Hard Nut" (to crack).
Spain: "The Glass Jungle" (same problem as in Poland).
The Finnish version is an interesting case: the original title was "Vain Kuolleen Ruumiini Yli" ("Over My Dead Body"). While the translated title is fairly close to the original, nowadays the original English title is used to refer to the movie (or, alternatively, the series as a whole).
Taiwan: The Ultimate Detective
Surprisingly averted in Mexico and Brazil where it was named "Duro de Matar", which is a direct and very accurate translation.
Darkhorse Casting: This was Alan Rickman's first film role. He was cast after Joel Silver saw him in Les Liaisons Dangereuses on Broadway.
You can buy gray sweatshirts that say "NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN. HO HO HO."
Also available are commemorative "Nakatomi Plaza Christmas Party 1988" t-shirts.
Divorced Installment: The film was was based on a book, Nothing Lasts Forever. This book was a sequel to The Detective, which had its own adaptation film in 1968, starring Frank Sinatra. When 73-year-old Sinatra declined to do the film (the contract for the first film stipulated that Sinatra would get first dibs on the role if the sequel was adapted), it was quickly retooled as a stand-alone work. Rumors that it was briefly intended as a sequel to Commando were debunked by co-writer Steven de Souza, though Arnold Schwarzenegger, among others, was offered the role of McClane but declined.
Enforced Method Acting: For shooting the moment of Hans falling to his death, Alan Rickman was told that he was going to be let go on a count of three. They dropped him on "two," and the look of panic on his face is definitely not acted; one is not surprised to learn that he was extremely angry after that shoot was over.
Bruce Willis lost two-thirds of his hearing after firing a gun loaded with extra-loud blanks from underneath a table.
Alan Rickman tore the cartilage in his knee when he jumped down for the scene in which Hans and McClane meet. When he's holding the gun at him, he was actually standing on one foot.
Orphaned Reference: Notice when McClane hands Gruber a cigarette, he looks at Gruber's watch. According to Steven E. de Souza, this was part of a deleted subplot where McClane would notice that the villains all have the same watch.
Playing Against Type: John McTiernan had to fight hard to get Willis the role of McClane because nobody thought the guy from Moonlighting could be an action star. Then he got so well known for Die Hard that it became hard for people to remember him as a comic actor at all.
McClane's Beretta 92F is the exact same Beretta used by Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon (1987), modified with an extended slide catch and magazine release, as well has missing the gold finish for the Beretta logo on the grip. It has since been retired to a museum display.
Sleeper Hit: There was not a lot of enthusiasm for the movie before release. Reports came that seeing the trailer and Bruce Willis as an action hero made audiences laugh (he was previously known for Moonlighting). It wasn't until release and the startlingly good reviews that brought audiences in.
Technology Marches On: John McClane's inability to contact the outside causes him some problems initially, as he's forced to use a captured radio to try calling the police. If he had had a mobile phone, the movie would have gone much differently. Humorously, Argyle spends most of the film luxuriating in the fact that he can call his friends on his limo's car phone.
Karl handing over a dollar bill to Theo was ad-libbed by Alexander Godunov, who theorized that the pair would have a bet between them as to whether Takagi would give up the code.
The line "Alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way, so he won't be joining us for the rest of his life"; Alan Rickman also improvised the bit of helping himself to the party buffet while saying this. Much of the scene where Hans tries to use a fake American accent to pass himself off as a hostage to McClane was apparently ad-libbed after the producers discovered that Rickman could do a good American impersonation.
The shot in the elevator shaft where McClane drops from the vent he was aiming for, but manages to grab the next one down was an accident on the part of the stuntman that made the final cut anyway.
Al Leong improvised the bit where he takes a candy bar from the concession stand before fighting the SWAT team, as he felt the scene could use some comic relief.
It is often said that Bruce Willis' lines during the scene when he pulls the glass out of his feet were ad-libbed. Indeed, it is said that upon learning this, Terry Gilliam cast Willis as the lead in 12 Monkeys. However, when comparing the original script, it appears that Willis only veered very slightly from the original written dialogue.
Willis has claimed that the iconic "Yippee ki yay, motherfucker" was ad-libbed, playing off Hans Gruber's cowboy taunt. Willis did not expect that line to make the cut.
Ellis' line "Hans... Bubby!" was ad-libbed. Alan Rickman's quizzical reaction was genuine.
McClane's "Hi honey" upon seeing Holly again was ad-libbed by Willis.
This is the big one: Nothing Lasts Forever, the 1979 novel on which the first film was based, was a sequel to the novel The Detective, which was adapted to film in 1966 starring Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was 73 at the time, but a clause in the first movie's contract meant he had a right to reprise his role as Joe Leland in the sequel before it could be offered to anyone else. Notably, Joe Leland is old and retired in the novel – it's likely that the novel was written with Sinatra in mind to reprise his role in a film adaptation. When Sinatra turned the role down, the character was made younger.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was the production team's choice for John McClane, and following Sinatra's above-mentioned rejection, the script was written to accommodate him. Once Arnie too turned the role down and Bruce Willis was cast, the movie had to be considerably altered to fit the latter's acting style.
Alan Rickman nearly passed up the role of Hans Gruber, which ended up being his first film role. He had only arrived in Hollywood two days earlier and was appalled by the idea of his first role being the villain in an action film.
In the original script, the action took place over three days, but John McTiernan was inspired to have it take place over a single night by A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is closer to the original novel, which ends at dawn rather than shortly after midnight.
The original script called for terrorists to hijack the building, and for a super-hero cop to stop them. McTiernan modified the script to change the bad guys into robbers pretending to be terrorists so that the audience could enjoy their intention of grabbing a load of money. He felt having terrorists as the villains would make the movie less enjoyable and give it a political angle, which he wanted to avoid.note Quite unlike the novel, which ends up very political as it turns out the "terrorists" are actually just after all the money that was stolen from the Chilean people during Henry Kissinger's negotiations with Pinochet, and Leland ends up bitterly realizing he was actually the villain all along, making things much bloodier than they needed to be. McTiernan also changed the hero, John McClane, into an everyday, flawed man that rises to the occasion in dire circumstances. He felt the audience would identify more with him than with a "super-cop".
McClane was originally supposed to meet Theo on the roof, but it was changed to Hans when McTiernan realized the hero and villain needed to meet face-to-face before the ending.
Write Who You Know: The character of Hans Gruber (named Anton Grueber in the book) is rumored to be based on author Roderick Thorp's father, a known tyrant amongst friends and family.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Much of the script was improvised due to the constant screenplay tweaks that were being made during filming. In the commentary track, John McTiernan nonchalantly points out there's no ambulance in the back of the terrorists' semi-tractor trailer when they arrive, since they hadn't thought of it yet.
. Bruce Willis retiring from acting in 2022 after being diagnosed with dementia and aphasia is almost assuredly the final nail in the coffin for any future sequels.