Die Hard
is a 1988 American action film directed by John McTiernan and written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. It stars Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, and Bonnie Bedelia. Based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp, Die Hard follows New York City police detective John McClane (Willis) who is caught up in a terrorist takeover of a Los Angeles skyscraper while visiting his estranged wife. The film features Reginald VelJohnson, William Atherton, Paul Gleason, and Hart Bochner in supporting roles.
Desperate for work, Stuart was offered the job of adapting Thorp's novel into a screenplay. His finished draft was greenlit immediately by 20th Century Fox, which was eager for a summer blockbuster for the following year. Finding a star proved difficult: the role of McClane was offered to a host of the decade's top stars, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, all of whom turned it down. Willis, who was known mainly for his TV work, was eventually chosen and paid $5 million for the role, an unheard-of figure at the time that attracted considerable controversy towards the film prior to its release. Filming began in November 1987 on a $25 million?$35 million budget. McTiernan and De Souza made alterations to the script throughout filming, including adding and changing scenes, and altering the ending. Die Hard was filmed almost entirely on location in and around Fox Plaza in Los Angeles.
Die Hard was a box office success, grossing between $139.8 million?$141.5 million, and defying pre-release expectations that Willis' lack of star appeal would hurt the film's success. It was the tenth-highest-grossing film of 1988 and the highest-grossing action film. Initial reviews were mixed: criticism was levelled at the violence, plot, and Willis' performance, while McTiernan's direction and Rickman's charismatic portrayal of the villain Hans Gruber were praised. Die Hard received four Academy Award nominations. The film elevated Willis to leading-man status and took Rickman from relative obscurity to celebrity.
In the wake of its release, Die Hard has been critically re-evaluated and is now considered to be one of the greatest action films ever made. It also has retroactively been called one of the best Christmas films, since the film's events take place on a Christmas Eve. It revitalized the action genre, largely due to its depiction of McClane as a vulnerable and fallible protagonist, in contrast to the muscle-bound and invincible action heroes of its contemporaries. The film's success spawned a host of imitators, such that the term "Die Hard in/on a..." became a shorthand way of describing a film's plot, particularly one where a lone hero must fight overwhelming odds, often in a restricted environment. Die Hard is the first film in what would become a franchise, that includes four film sequels?Die Hard 2, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard, and A Good Day to Die Hard?video games, comic books, toys, board games, clothing, and collectibles. Deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2017.
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