Few people would claim to be looking forward to A Good Day To Die Hard, although director John Moore (previously responsible for such cinematic masterpieces as the Omen remake and Max Payne) has sought to reassure everyone his movie will be exactly like the Die Hard we all love, in that it will be nothing like it at all. For one thing, Moore claims John McClane will desist from his usual wisecracking because, in our post-financial crisis world (what?), he doesn’t think ‘people are in the mood for that bollocks anymore’. Because no-one goes to the cinema to escape the difficulties of the outside world and, heaven forfend, enjoy themselves. That’s what the box-office struggles of Joss Whedon’s jocular and entertaining The Avengers taught us.

Moore also suggests the movie will be on a bigger scale than ever before, moving from New York to Moscow and featuring a car chase which took 78 days to shoot. I adore Die Hard With A Vengeance, so can’t complain too much about the movie having a wider scope than the Nakatomi Plaza, but it doesn’t sound as though the right lessons have been learnt from 2007’s drearily over-the-top Live Free Or Die Hard. (Although this time McClane has a son in tow, rather than a daughter, so that’s OK). I’ve no problem with a series evolving, but every quote makes it sound like Moore is taking his movie in the opposite direction to everything that makes Die Hard unique and fun.

[via EMPIRE