John McClane and Jack Bauer: The bonkers abandoned crossover between ‘Die Hard’ and ‘24’
Much like the Indiana Jones franchise, Die Hard would have probably been much better off left alone as a trilogy, but Hollywood isn’t exactly known for being a place where an iconic property simply gets to fade away without being repurposed or revitalised.
After a 12-year absence from screens, Bruce Willis finally returned as John McClane in Len Wiseman’s Live Free or Die Hard, which made enough money to justify 20th Century Fox’s decision to dust off the IP. It was a serviceable action blockbuster, but with the hero now suddenly capable of launching cars at helicopters and taking down fighter jets with his bare hands in a CGI-fuelled PG-13 environment, it was hardly a Die Hard movie in spirit.
Despite such a commercially successful comeback, though, development on the inevitable fifth instalment was a slow process. Unfortunately, the exhaustive amount of time spent working on the film that was eventually released as A Good Day to Die Hard was not well spent because it was terrible. Jai Courtney possesses all the charisma and screen presence of a mouldy sponge, Willis never feels as if he’s doing anything other than going through the motions, while director John Moore and screenwriter Skip Woods lived up to their billing as the minds behind Max Payne, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Hitman.
Clearly, the movie was made because Die Hard was a known entity that captured what the studio hoped would be the sweet spot between nostalgia for the original trio and the sort of explosive pyrotechnics that could draw in a new generation of viewers. In the earliest stages, word began to filter out that the project was provisionally titled Die Hard 24/7, which immediately piqued plenty of interest.
After all, Fox was also behind Kiefer Sutherland’s smash hit series 24, which steered the actor to two Primetime Emmy wins and a Golden Globe victory over the course of his eight seasons torturing suspects, thwarting terrorist attacks on America, and repeatedly bellowing “DAMMIT!” at the top of his lungs. The show had ended its initial run before A Good Day to Die Hard got the official green light, but Jack Bauer was still plenty popular, so it’s easy to see why the rights-holders were contemplating such an idea.
Partnering up McClane and Bauer in the same action-packed feature-length extravaganza sounds like a fever dream, one that had the potential to either be wish-fulfilment realised on the grandest scale or an unmitigated disaster. At no point was Die Hard 24/7 ever acknowledged as a prospective crossover by anyone involved, but 24 producer Jon Cassar confirmed to Screen Rant that it was actively on the table.
Admitting “the last Die Hard you saw was supposed to be a 24, and John McClane crossover,” Cassar conceded that “everything has been thrown at the wall to see if they can come up with anything” to facilitate another mission for CTU’s most trigger-happy agent, but it didn’t come to pass.
On paper, the idea of McClane and Bauer teaming up to batter their way through a conspiracy and take down the bad guys basically sells itself. Still, based on what happened with the final two Die Hard flicks, it’s not difficult to imagine Fox conspiring to ruin that tantalising concept. It didn’t see the light of day, but it would have been utterly bonkers if it did.