I'm talking about Die Hard, the greatest Christmas movie in the history of everything. It was based off a novel entitled "Nothing Lasts Forever," which was itself a sequel to Roderick Thorpe's "The Detective" (which was made into a movie as well, starring Frank Sinatra as the titular detective).
Thorpe dreamed up (literally, in this case) the sequel when he fell asleep watching the Irwin Allen disaster epic "The Towering Inferno." By that time, Sinatra was too old to reprise the role, so the character's name was changed from "John Leland" to "John McClane" by the producers, who then offered the part to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He turned it down, and the rest is history, especially for Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, both of whom became international stars as a result. :-)
One funny thing is that the original script didn't call for Rickman's Hans Gruber character to even meet Willis' McClane until the movie's final scene. But common sense took hold among the producers, writers and director (John McTiernan... a seriously good action movie auteur ;-) -- because it would have been INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE for the hero and the villain never to have a face-to-face confrontation with each other until that last scene, where McClane finally sorts out Gruber and co. in order to save his estranged wife, Holly Gennaro McClane.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
Thorpe dreamed up (literally, in this case) the sequel when he fell asleep watching the Irwin Allen disaster epic "The Towering Inferno." By that time, Sinatra was too old to reprise the role, so the character's name was changed from "John Leland" to "John McClane" by the producers, who then offered the part to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He turned it down, and the rest is history, especially for Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, both of whom became international stars as a result. :-)
One funny thing is that the original script didn't call for Rickman's Hans Gruber character to even meet Willis' McClane until the movie's final scene. But common sense took hold among the producers, writers and director (John McTiernan... a seriously good action movie auteur ;-) -- because it would have been INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE for the hero and the villain never to have a face-to-face confrontation with each other until that last scene, where McClane finally sorts out Gruber and co. in order to save his estranged wife, Holly Gennaro McClane.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."