July 15, 1988: "Die Hard" Premieres

July 15, 1988: Die Hard premieres in theaters. It has become one of the most popular action-adventure films of all time.

The story begins in 1966, with the publication of The Detective by Roderick Thorp (1936-1999). There, the main character is a New York Police Department Detective named Joe Leland. In 1968, it was filmed, with Frank Sinatra as Leland.

In 1979, Thorp published a sequel, Nothing Lasts Forever. In this one, Leland is described as retired. For Christmas, he goes to visit his daughter Stephanie, who works for an oil company in Los Angeles, and her children. The Christmas party is interrupted by German terrorists led by Anton Gruber, a.k.a. Tony the Red. They who object to the company's dealings with then-fascist Chile. At the end, Gruber holds Stephanie hostage, and Leland shoots him, and he falls to his death -- but takes Stephanie with him.

In 1985, preparations began for a film of Nothing Lasts Forever. Since Sinatra had played the hero in the original film, the producers were contractually obligated to offer him the role again, even though he was approaching 70 years old. (McClane was described as retired and a grandfather, but not elderly.) Most of Sinatra's roles since the late 1960s had been cops, but he hadn't acted in anything other than a cameo in 5 years, and he knew he couldn't play this role, so he turned it down.

The story was somewhat re-written, and Bruce Willis, then starring in the ABC private-detective series Moonlighting, was cast as an active, if middle-aged, New York Detective, John McClane. It's his wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) and their kids that he's visiting in Los Angeles, and Holly works -- as with Stephanie in the book, using her maiden name, Gennaro -- for the Nakatomi Corporation, at a still-unfinished 40-story building.

(Nakatomi Plaza is actually Fox Plaza, 593 feet tall, with 34 stories instead of the film's claim of 40. It was designed to be used as a filming location, and while Die Hard is its best-known "performance," it's not the only one. The building's real address is used in the film: 2121 Avenue of the Stars, in the Century City section of West Los Angeles.)

This time, in a film directed by John McTiernan, the leader of the terrorists is named Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman), and while he eventually tells the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI that his motive is political, this is a lie. (When asked by one of his men if the political prisoners whose release he demanded would be released, he said, "Who cares?") What he's really after is $640 million in negotiable bonds in Nakatomi's possession. (That's about $1.6 billion in 2022 money.)

The way the Leland character was rewritten as McClane makes him rather different to the persona that Sinatra had developed. When Gruber calls McClane just another American who thinks he's a cowboy like John Wayne, McClane responds with a line I simply cannot imagine being spoken by Angelo Maggio, or Nathan Detroit, or Danny Ocean, or any other Sinatra character: "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" It becomes McClane's catchphrase, used at least once in every film.

I was working at a movie theater when this movie came out. At the same time, we had these films playing: Die Hard, Bull Durham, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Midnight Run, Red Heat, A Fish Called Wanda, Married to the Mob and Crossing Delancey. Not playing at that theater, but playing elsewhere: Big, Coming to America, Cocktail and Young Guns. It would have been a nice Summer, if only we had been paid enough to enjoy our time outside of the theater.

When Gruber is hanging by Holly's Rolex watch, a gift from a cokehead co-worker who wanted her but ended up killed by Gruber, and McClane is trying to get it off her with his sweaty, bloody, cut-up fingers, Gruber slowly pulls his gun over, ready to shoot McClane. Have you ever heard 400 people gasp at once? I have: These people hadn't seen the movie before, and didn't know what was about to happen. Maybe some of them had read the book, and figured one of the McClanes was going to die. (More likely, most of them weren't aware at the time that there even was a book. I wasn't.)

Instead, McClane gets the watch off Holly's wrist. The look on Gruber's face, as he knows he's about to fall 32 floors to his death, with his gun in one hand and a very nice watch in the other, both of them now useless, was priceless, and it got a big cheer from the audience, even before he hit the ground.

Let's get this out of the way, right now: Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Yes, it takes place during the Christmas season, specifically on Christmas Eve. Yes, there are Christmas decorations up. But there is no message that ties in with the meaning of Christmas, unless you want to count the redemption of LAPD Sergeant Al Powell (Reginald VelJohnson).

Certainly, all the killing isn't a Christian thing to do, even though it is necessary to save lives. Besides, it takes place in Los Angeles. Christmas movies should take place in a cold-weather city, where snow is possible. The debris falling from Nakatomi Plaza does not count as snow.

If Die Hard is a "Christmas movie," then so is Running Scared, made 2 years earlier, set in Chicago, with Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines as unlikely Detectives (never mind an unlikely partnership), and Jimmy Smits as a drug lord. And so are the superhero movies Batman Returns and Shazam! And they're both better movies.

You can also count The Thin Man, Meet Me In St. Louis, The Apartment, The French Connection, Three Days of the Condor, Trading Places, Gremlins, Steel Magnolias, Edward Scissorhands, The Long Kiss Goodnight, L.A. Confidential, and most versions of Little Women. All those movies take place at least partly during the Christmas season. Most of them have men dressed in Santa Claus suits. With the obvious exception of L.A. Confidential, all of them have snow. And those are all better movies than Die Hard. 

I will not die on this hill. But I will knock a sucker off it. 

Don't worry: Not even I am arrogant enough to suggest that Christmastime-set movies Rocky IV, Lethal Weapon, or Invasion U.S.A. -- or any Chuck Norris movie, for that matter -- is a better movie than Die Hard.

Die Hard has taken on a life of its own on social media. "If you start watching Die Hard at (I forget the exact time) on Christmas Eve, then Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Plaza at exactly midnight." And then there are the satirical articles about how Gruber is actually the hero of the movie, along the lines of people who watch the Avengers movies and say, "Thanos did nothing wrong."

There would be sequels:

* 1990, Die Hard 2, directed by Renny Harlin: This film is based on Walter Wager's 1987 novel 58 Minutes, but was rewritten with the McClane character in mind. Again, it is Christmas Eve, and McClane, now a Lieutenant, is at Dulles International Airport, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., waiting for Holly's plane to land. But terrorists (not connected to Gruber's group) take over the control tower. A lot of planes, not cleared to land, are going to circle the airport, run out of fuel, and crash. (Never mind that they could be re-directed to what's now Reagan National Airport, or Baltimore-Washington International.)

* 1995, Die Hard with a Vengeance, with McTiernan returning as director: The McClanes are once again separated, and Bedelia has not appeared in the series again. Simon Gruber (Jeremy Irons), Hans' brother, blows up the famed Bonwit Teller department store. (In real life, it had gone out of business years earlier, its flagship store demolished to make way for Trump Tower.) He then issues a series of demands, things McClane must do, or more bombs will be detonated. These are humiliations, in revenge for his brother.

But the last bomb, at a public school, is a fake, a diversion from Simon's real plan: To steal $140 million in gold bullion from the Federal Reserve Bank downtown. (About $272 million in 2022 money. Apparently, Simon was the small thinker out of the brothers.) Knowing that this was the sort of thing that Hans would have done, McClane figures it out. Simon escapes long enough to get to the New York State-Quebec border, but McClane tracks him down and kills him.

* 2007, Live Free or Die Hard, directed by Len Wiseman: McClane, assisted by his estranged daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), has to stop a cyberterrorist from ruining America's infrastructure.

* 2013, A Good Day to Die Hard, directed by John Moore: The tagline on the movie poster was, "Yippee Ki-Yay, Mother Russia." Russia is where McClane's estranged son, CIA Agent Jack McClane (Jai Courtney, who was all of 2 years old when the 1st film was released), is being held prisoner, and Dad gets him out. This film suggests that "Yippee-ki-yay" is a Native American phrase meaning "This is a good day to die."

In 2022, Willis announced his retirement from acting due to aphasia, which affects his ability to process and produce language. He had previously wanted a 6th film to provide a definitive ending, possibly including McClane's death. The idea of a period piece/origin story, with a younger actor, was considered, as was combining the two ideas, showing past and present and how they connected, in the style of The Godfather Part II. With Willis' illness, a "final" McClane film is not going to happen, and the origin story (or maybe a complete reboot) is "stuck in development hell."

The football game that the terrorist, masquerading as a security guard, is watching when Al Powell talks to him? Notre Dame and the University of Southern California usually play each other in mid-October when it's Notre Dame's turn to host, and on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when it's USC's turn, because it would be too cold to play it in South Bend, Indiana in late November. But college football games are rarely played on Christmas Eve, and ND and USC never do.

Someone discovered that the footage used on the screen was from the 1982 game between the teams. USC rebounded from that 7-0 1st quarter deficit to win, 17-13 -- but did not cover the 9 1/2-point spread. So if the terrorist was telling the truth, and he had $50 bet on the game, he lost. Not that it mattered, because McClane killed him, anyway.

A 2021 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured a 3-way battle: "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist playing John McClane, "Nice" Peter Shukoff playing John Rambo, and Zach Sherwin playing John Wick.

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July 15, 1988 was a Friday. These Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at Yankee Stadium. Rick Rhoden was the winning pitcher. Don Mattingly got 3 hits, including a home run.

* The New York Mets lost to the Atlanta Braves, 4-3 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. Kevin McReynolds and Darryl Strawberry hit home runs for the Mets, but Randy Myers blew it by giving up a homer to Dale Murphy in the bottom of the 10th inning.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Montreal Expos, 6-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Boston Red Sox swept a doubleheader from the Kansas City Royals at Fenway Park, 3-1 and 7-4. George Brett went 3-for-9 on the day, with an RBI, to no avail.

* The Houston Astros beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-2 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Mike Schmidt went 1-for-3.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Baltimore Orioles, 4-2 at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore. Eddie Murray went 2-for-4, but Cal Ripken went 0-for-4.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-5 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla each bopped a banger for the Bucs.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs, 3-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Tracy Woodson singled home the winning run in the top of the 10th.

* The San Diego Padres beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-3 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis. Tony Gwynn went 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Texas Rangers, 4-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The California Angels beat the Detroit Tigers, 6-4 at Anaheim Stadium (now Angel Stadium of Anaheim).

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Oakland Athletics, 1-0 at the Oakland Coliseum. Jimmy Key pitched a 2-hit shutout to defeat Dave Stewart, and both went the distance. The only run scored on an RBI single by George Bell in the 3rd inning.

* And the Seattle Mariners beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-5 at the Kingdome in Seattle.