If Die Hard Got Rebooted

Hollywood currently has a running trend in rebooting things, from all genres and all decades, and reboots look to be dark, gritty and realistic.

Die hard is a quintessential action movie franchise. Classic bad guys (accents) gun fights, badass one liners and explosions (not Michael explosions but good looking chaos) Detective John McClane is a heavy drinking, chimney smoking, marriage failing, barefooted, gun carrying on a plane kind of a guy. A real man’s kind of man, a product of the 80’s film industry. In reality they would almost never reboot the series, just spit out sequels with an aging Bruce Willis with over-the-top Michael Bay style action and tamed language.

However, out of hypitheticals and pure bordom let's say they reboot the series, what would it look like? and who could/would they get?

Firstly there would obviously be some changes in the story. With reboots they like to try to keep closer to source material. Die is based on a book....or of. Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart, who wrote the screenplay for Die Hard, took some major creative liberties with "Nothing Lasts Forever." Lets look at the changes made from the original story

• The main character is named Joe Leland, who is a retired NYPD detective
• It is his daughter, Stephanie GENNARO! who is at Christmas party
• The company she works for is Klaxon Oil Corporations, an American company
• Female "Terrorists"
• Anton Gruber instead of 'Hans'
• A far less happy ending

There are various others...

THE CAST

Now lets just clear this out of the way firstly, I am going to name who I think could play these iconic roles (if you disagree, feel free to suggest your own but try to be nice about it)

John McClane

Bruce Willis' iconic role. Filling the boots of the role that made Bruce Willis the action man we know today. Getting someone to be the John McClane we know and love would be impossible but one of the benefit to a reboot is that it's aim isn't to have carbon copies of past portaryals but to reinvent the character and as the book features themes such as guilt, alcoholism and the complexity of the human mind, you could bet they would make it into the reboot.

My personal choice would Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, Days of our lives) Now Jensen hasn't done an awful lot of film acting, he's primarily a TV actor but the same could be said for Bruce before he played the character. Ackles is best known for playing Dean Winchester in The CW's Supernatural and with the long running series coming to an end I think it would be a perfect time for him to break into films. Dean and John do have similar character attributes and seeing as Jensen Ackles has played the character for the past 9 years I think would be safe to say he has the character down.

But seriously, lets not kid ourselves. Hollywood would simply go after your usual Hollywood hunk or action star. Obviously yes Jensen Ackles is a good looking guy but what would set him apart is that he'd be a new face on the big screen for audience.

Hans Gruber

Played by British actor Alan Rickman, Hans Gruber is the leader of the criminals, posing as terrorists, who plan to steal $640 million in Bear Bonds, only to be foiled by McClane. With Rickman's smooth British accent it would be in my professional opinion that you would need another British actor to take the role of the German genius.

I narrowed it down to two of possibly the most popular British actors at the moment, Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch. Both highly successful British actors who have shown to be able to do straight faced and dry characters. Cumberbatch with Sherlock Holmes and Hiddleston with his Loki in the Marvel film universe.

Alternatively you could get Austrian/German actor Christoph Waltz to play the role, who was my third choice

Al Powell

Now in the simpliest description, Al is a large black police Sergeant who John McClane ropes into his perdicament and quickly befriends. If you were wanting to cast a similar actor for the role you may run into one odd obstacle. In the original Al Powell was played by Reginald VelJohnson, now think of large black actors today, the list isn't awfully long. Sure he could be a large white Sergeant (a much longer mental) or just not big but they added dimensions to the character.

In my mind I'd cast Craig Robinson. Yes, he's a comedy actor but I feel a lot of the rapport between John and Al is rather humorous. I'd also like to see Robinson's serious acting when the film discusses Al's Refusal to fire his gun.

Holly Gennaro McClane

While in the book it is his daughter held hostage it would only really work if John was older, they would also want to keep Holly as the damsel in distress character for romantic purposes. Played by Bonnie Bedelia originally.

I would want Alison Pill to play Holly. Probably an unsual choice to some however it is because of Hollywood's need to just cast overly attractive females to bring in a male audience (It's Die Hard, a majority of the audience would be guys anyway) Using the phrase unconventionally attractive probably would be wrong of me when stating my choice of Alison Pill but it is one of the reasons, along with the fact I was a big fan of her in HBO's "The Newsroom."

Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi

Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi is the head executive of the Nakatomi Corporation who is killed in the first act of the film after refusing to cooperate with Gruber. Obviously in a reboot he wouldn't need to be Japanese, seeing how it is an American company in the books, he and the company could be from country but for the sack of this piece lets just stick with Japan.

My choice is Ken Watanabe

Harry Ellis and Richard Thornbury

Two sleaze balls. Ellis is a cokehead executive at Nakatomi and Thornbury a local report who does anything he can to exploit the situation to his gain. Both are arrogant, which lands one being punched in the face and the other with a bullet wound.

For these roles two actors came to mind, both could play either role. Bill Hader and Will Forte, best known for their work on Saturday Night Live. Along with the sleazy characteristics of Thornbury and Ellis there is a bit of room for some comedy elements

When it comes to the rest of the cast I haven't given it much thought, most other characters don't feature too much. Deputy Chief Robinson, the Johnsons from the FBI, Grubers Men, Argyle, these roles could be played many low key actors

So what do you think. Obviously Hollywood would never make this kind of film. A Die Hard reboot would a wreck and hopefully Hollywood are aware of that. They'd hold off until at least Bruce Willis had been dead for a few years, to ensure he doesn't come looking for retribution. Who would you want in the roles? and who do you think could direct it?