You can smell it in the air, can’t you? Egg nog and spices? Fires in the fireplace? Jingly bells and reindeer hooves? And that merry, merry aroma of C-4 and machine guns coming from the Nakatomi Plaza?
Reginald VelJohnson as Sgt. Al Powell takes in the view of Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard (1988), 20th Century Fox
Yes, it is Christmastime, and everyone’s favorite holiday movie is coming back to theaters to celebrate on the big screen! Die Hard, the movie that made Bruce Willis an action star, made audiences aware of the expert euro-villainy of Alan Rickman, and featured jolly cop Reggie VelJohnson who’d later, in Chicago instead of this film’s L.A., would likewise wear police blue as the fatherly foil to Steve Urkel, will see itself once again claiming just due as, yes, a Christmas movie no matter what the Grinchy Yippee-Ki-Naysayers might assert to the contrary.
The movie arrives in theaters on December 8th for a limited run.
Yippee-Ki-Yay! Die Hard is back at select #AMCTheatres starting December 8! Only for a limited time, so hurry!
— AMC Theatres (@AMCTheatres) November 28, 2023
🎟 – https://t.co/JB0iHUgoVN pic.twitter.com/omi8wbrwKy
The 1988 super-bockbuster is especially poignant now that beloved comic-action star Bruce Willis, who went on to make four more movies as terror-busting everyman NYC Cop John McClane in 1990, 1995, 2007, and 2013, has now sadly been diagnosed with dementia and retired from the screen.
The Great Die Hard Christmas Debate has been going on since the beginning, and each sequel furthered the dissention in the ranks of moviegoers (but never hurt the bottom line—see this link https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr2269613829/ for the box office results of all of the films including the original’s two re-releases so far and find out that, yes, translated into inflation-adjusted dollars, they ALL beat Wish and The Marvels at the box office.)
Andreas Wisniewski as Tony Vreski in Die Hard (1988), 20th Century Fox
Since I grew up mere blocks from the then-unfinished-and-thus-available-as-a-pyro-set Fox Plaza building, the real-world stand-in for the fictional “Nakatomi Plaza” location, the movie has always had a special place in my heart and life—I literally listened to the explosions and saw the lights of the shooting of those exteriors on the streets of Century City (an Alcoa development in West Los Angeles on the border of Beverly Hills that was made from what had been the 20th Century Fox backlot until the infamous flop Cleopatra forced the sale of the real estate (and yeah, it lost less than The Marvels too!)
And let’s face it—the mix of action, comedy, great performances, and superb direction from John McTiernan (it put HIM on the map too as he later helmed The Hunt For Red October, The Last Action Hero, Medicine Man, Rollerball, and so many more.
Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard (1988), 20th Century Fox
Die Hard by the way has been designated “A film of Cultural Or Aesthetic Signficance” on the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry list of such rare and wonderful movies.
If you’ve somehow never seen it or only seen it on the home screen perhaps a visit during the holidays to your local big screen cinema is called for as the tale of terrorists, cops, and robbers is a guaranteed popcorn-worthy night at the movies….and speaking of nights…
Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988), 20th Century Fox
Die Hard has another distinction that most people don’t know about and is a fun story of not just the music video world but of the movie biz. There was a fantastic hard-rocking band on the East Coast called “Guyz Nite” that just plain LOVED the Die Hard movies and decided to write a song about them. They performed it in clubs and figured it deserved a music video but not of them singing but made up entirely of clips from the first three movies because the song had three verses, one on each film, with a powerfully fun refrain based on the hero’s battle cry of “Yippee-Ki-Yay, M’F’ers!” (which Willis came up with during shooting because he was a big Gene Autry fan as a kid, by the way.)
WELL, in the video, they never obtained the rights to use the clips and about the time the fourth movie was in post-production, the Fox legal department got wind of this YouTube hit video and decided they should SUE Guyz Nite for copyright infringement! Happily, the PR department heard about it before that happened and told the lawyers “NO! Don’t SUE them! This thing is getting MAJOR views and reviews by fans. Let’s not sue them, let’s USE them to promote the new movie!”
Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard (1988), 20th Century Fox
AND SO…a deal was struck with the band where they’d be given permission to do what they’d already done IF…..they’d write a FOURTH verse about the about-to-be-released movie and Fox would actually give them clips of that film to incorporate into the extended version of the song’s video (even though, as their lyrics admit, they never saw the finished film before writing and recording it!)
So…let me close by welcoming you into the world of Guyz Nite’s Die Hard tribute, and wishing you all a hearty Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and a cheerful Yippee Ki Yay, MoFos!
Turn up your speakers. LOUD. And I’ll bet you, like me, will be singing along on the chorus and find this and the new theatrical re-release of Die Hard to be, well, the perfect way to virtually “Come out to the Coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…” Yippee Ki Yay indeed!
Will you be heading to the theater in December to watch Die Hard?
