Trivia / Die Hard 2

• Acting for Two: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Eduardo Fonseca pulls triple duty voicing Marvin and Major Grant, as well as reprising his role as Al Powell.
• B-Team Sequel: John McTiernan had planned to direct this film, but could not because of his commitment to directing The Hunt for Red October.
• California Doubling: The film takes place at Washington Dulles International Airport, but it was actually filmed in several different locations in Colorado, Michigan, and California. One scene has McClane in the airport talking on the phone to his wife who is in an approaching plane, and "Pacific Bell" can clearly be read on the payphone he's using.
  • Maps of Los Angeles' subway system can be seen in the background of the airport even though its supposed to be in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
• Completely Different Title : In France, the movie is known as "58 minutes to live".
• Creator Backlash:
  • Bruce Willis revealed in his conversation with Kevin Smith on the Live Free or Die Hard set that in retrospect, he didn't like the second and third movies as much as the first. He by no means hated them, but he thought Live Free or Die Hard was the best of the sequels.
  • Willis later expressed displeasure with the film because he felt it was too similar to the original and he didn't like the constant references to that film. For this reason, he named it as his least favorite of the first four Die Hard films — albeit he never outright disowned it in the way that he did with A Good Day to Die Hard.
• The Danza: In the script, the Big Bad Colonel Stuart's first name is William, like his actor William Sadler.
• Deleted Scene: Several scenes were filmed but cut from the final release of the film:
  • An extended version of the scene when McClane enters the terminal, featuring shots of a children's choir singing Christmas carols (the audio of the choir singing still remains in the final cut, but only heard in the background),
  • A scene of O'Reilly and Sheldon killing off two painters and stealing their truck as well as their uniforms (to pose as painters later in the Skywalk SWAT team ambush scene). This scene takes place during the baggage handling fight, which is slightly extended by having John argue with a dog in a pet carrier before finding the golf clubs.
  • An extended version of the scene where McClane first meets up with Marvin the janitor, and finally an extended scene of Marvin showing McClane the best way to access the tunnels to get to the runways, which includes a scene where McClane has to walk carefully across a narrow beam over a hot boiler.
  • The film's initial cut received an NC-17 rating, necessitating several action scenes be heavily trimmed in order to bring it down to an R, though the film is arguably still the most violent out of the entire franchise. Some of these cuts include:
    • Additional footage of Cochrane being killed in the conveyor belt, including a longer shot of his head as it gets crushed and his hand violently twitching and smoking as his head is electrocuted.
    • A slow-motion of the SWAT team leader being shot in the head, with blood spewing out of a visible exit wound.
    • Additional footage of O'Reilly being shot by McClane through a ventilation grate.
    • A scene establishing the presence of a young girl on the airplane that later crashes, whose doll is the same one McClane later picks up from the wreckage.
    • Additional footage of the plane crash, including the passengers' terrified reactions.
    • A longer and more graphic shot of Baker being stabbed with an icicle.
    • Additional footage of the fight scene on the wing, including a longer and more graphic scene of Grant being sucked into and pulverized by the plane engine.
    • The climactic plane explosion is longer and more drawn out, with close-ups of the villains' reactions just as they're blasted by the oncoming wall of flames.
• Distanced from Current Events: A TV showing of the second film was delayed in the UK - and instead replaced with the showing of the Sylvester Stallone movie Cliffhanger (also directed by Renny Harlin) — because of a recent incident at Glasgow Airport involving a flaming car crashing into the building, and with the movie being set in an airport, they probably thought showing it would be in bad taste.
• Dolled-Up Installment: Originally an adaptation of Richard Wagner's 58 Minutes, about an off-duty cop stopping a group of terrorists at an airport.
• Dyeing for Your Art: William Sadler trained for several months in Karate and Tai Chi to prepare for the ending fight scene and also asked for time to get ripped upon learning he'd be appearing nude in his first scene. It worked.
• Executive Meddling: According to John Leguizamo in his autobiography, his role was intended to be much larger until the filmmakers realized how short he was. His part was cut down to one line which was dubbed by someone else.
• Fake Brit: Colm Meaney, an Irishman of Star Trek fame, appears as the Windsor Airlines pilot.
• Fake Nationality: The Italian Franco Nero as General Esperanza.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Bruce Willis ad-libbed many one-liners.
• Hostility on the Set: In an interview, John Amos said there was actual tension between him and Bruce Willis during the course of filming which got reflected on screen. "Let's just say that he will never humiliate me in public again," Amos said. "You got that, Bruce?"
• Real-Life Relative: That was Bruce Willis's father David Sr. as Murray, the tow truck driver who hauled McClane's car away at the beginning of the movie.
• Release Date Change: The release was moved back five days from its June 29, 1990 release date, which was listed on the film's final one-sheet poster.
• Technology Marches On: The jokes regarding then-new technologies like airline phones, fax machines, and tasers.
• Throw It In!:
  • The part where Garber sticks his hand in front of the camera and says "No pictures, you pinko bitch" was unscripted. Don Harvey actually improvised this part and it was kept in the scene.
  • During the skywalk shootout, Mulkey (the last Mook killed) is shown repeatedly cursing at his gun. The MP5K Ken Baldwin was using repeatedly jammed, making his outbursts completely genuine.
  • Towards the end, the original script had McClane declaring: "Hey Colonel... happy fucking New Year!" while igniting the kerosene, but Bruce Willis went with "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" instead. It's unclear as to whether Willis did this on purpose or not, but director Harlin liked the call-back to the first movie and agreed it was even better this way.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The original script had a lot more swearing, to the point where Fred Thompson complained that the excessive cursing made the film unintentionally funny in scenes that were supposed to be serious. While the film still has plenty of cursing, it's apparently nowhere near the amount in the first script.
  • According to the original script, Colonel Stuart's death was different compared to the final film: in the script, he remained outside on the airplane's wing a bit longer after knocking off McClane, then took notice of the fuel trail as McClane lights it; horrified, he ordered Esperanza to take off, but it was too late as the fuel caused the plane to explode, and Stuart was promptly "blown to little pieces".
  • In earlier screenplay drafts, there was a more prominent female role that was earmarked for Linda Fiorentino.
  • Billy Campbell was up for a bit role as one of the terrorists, but then he got cast in The Rocketeer.
• You Sound Familiar: In the Latin American Spanish dub, many voice actors from the first movie appeared in this one again as different characters. Most notably, Lorenzo was voiced by Jorge Fink, who voiced Hans Gruber in the previous film.

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