This year marks the 30th anniversary of the landmark filmDie Hard. To children of the ’80s, it feels like we’ve never not hadDie Hardin our lives. New fans may not even realize how they’re still feeling the impact ofDie Hardtoday.

/Film attended a 30th anniversary screening ofDie Hardthis week as part of Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics series. They screened a new 4K restoration of the film, which may have been sharper than the original film prints in 1988. Since most of the film is set at night in darkened building hallways, 4K makes sure every punch McClane throws lands clearly on a terrorists' face.

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Produced by action king Joel Silver,Die Hardwas the movie that made Bruce Willis a movie star. He was popular on the TV seriesMoonlighting, but playing John McClane brought him up to the ranks of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone (the trio would together open the short-lived Planet Hollywood restaurant too). There’d be noArmageddon, LooperorDeath Wishremake for Willis withoutDie Hard.

Willis played John McClane, a New York cop visiting his wife Holly (Bonny Bedelia) for Christmas. Stopping by her office Christmas party at Nakatomi Plaza (the real Fox Plaza that still stands next to the studio lot), McClane sees terrorists take over the building. McClane singlehandedly takes out terrorists one by one to foil their plan.

Die Hardhas never stopped playing in theaters. Every December, theaters like the Arclight or L.A.’s New Beverly showDie Hardbecause of its Christmas setting. Expect 2018 to have a lot moreDie Hardcelebration.

StarsBonnie BedeliaandReginald VelJohnsonwere present at the 30th anniversary screening we attended, along with screenwriterSteven E. DeSouza. With all the DVD bonus features and interviews the makers ofDie Hardhave done in 30 years, one would think there’s little we don’t yet know about the film. However, their Q&A revealed several things that were new even to thisDie Hardconnoisseur.

Wesley Snipes or Gene Hackman could have been Al Powell

Al Powell (VelJohnson) was John McClane’s man on the outside of Nakatomi Plaza. A desk cop sent to check out the emergency calls McClane sent from Nakatomi, Powell becomes the only man on the LAPD who believes McClane. Through the course of the night, over a walkie talkie, McClane and Powell bond, with Powell even revealing the tragic accident that sent him back to the desk.

It’s hard to imagine anyone but VelJohnson as Al Powell now, but when he auditioned for the role, VelJohnson saw another famous face vying for the role.

“I was living in New York at the time and I went in to audition,” VelJohnson said. “There was a lot of well known actors that were there. I don’t want to name the people there, Wesley Snipes, but I was desperate.”

Even before the casting call, an A-lister was supposed to play the role. His casting would have made Powell more of a gruff veteran than a haunted patrolman.

“The person they had before, they told me it was Gene Hackman,” VelJohnson. “I heard he had the role but couldn’t do it, so they decided to cast an unknown for the part and I was right there.”

Bedelia and Willis improvised their marital problems

When McClane gets to Nakatomi Plaza, he learns that Holly has been using her maiden name Gennero. This brings up the old argument that led her to move to LA for six months. The heart of the movie becomes McClane learning, in a trial by fire, that he’s been petty about his wife’s success.

De Souza gave credit where it was due. While the plot did require Holly to use the name Gennero, so that terrorist leader Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) wouldn’t suspect her until later in the movie, Willis and McClane improvised the argument that reveals all their backstory.

“Bonnie and Bruce largely improvised the argument they have in her suite,” De Souza said. “Somehow they managed to bring an argument from who knows where, and I was the stenographer there incorporating all their improv into that scene.”

John McTiernan didn’t do character work

Die Hardwas only John McTiernan’s third movie, followingPredator.McTiernan became a highly sought after action director for the following decade, with credits likeThe Hunt For Red October, Last Action Hero, The Thomas Crown Affairand of course,Die Hard with a Vengeance.

McTiernan sadly has been out of commission for much of the 2000s. He went to prison for his involvement in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case. He is released and will hopefully return to filmmaking. Looking back on his legendary work, Bedelia shared how he focused on the filmmaking and left the actors alone.

“I met John McTiernan while I was being fitted for my costume,” Bedelia said. “He said, ‘Hi, I’m the director, John McTiernan. I just want you to know that Elia Kazan I’m not. So if you’ve got any questions about your character, don’t come to me.’ It’s true, what I recall most about him is sitting in the director’s chair with his feet up on the other one in front of the monitors. He was all about putting the film together.”

Joel Silver liked Christmas movies to secure TV airplay

Die Hardbecame a Christmas tradition be the mid-90s, and the last decade or so has seen much debate over it. Thinkpieces have declared it both not a Christmas movie and definitely a Christmas movie. For the record, not only does it take place on Christmas Eve, but the soundtrack includes “Winter Wonderland” worked into the score, Christmas decorations are a major plot point and it is about the repairing of a broken family.

De Souza weighed in on the pro-Christmas side, confirming it in a Twitter exchange with Jake Tapper last year. It was Silver’s second Christmas action movie afterLethal Weaponand a tradition he continued, often with screenwriter Shane Black. De Souza explained how Christmas was a business strategy for Silver.

“The reason it takes place at Christmas is because in the novel it was Christmas,” De Souza said. “That’s why he was coming out to the coast. Joel Silver said, ‘I want this movie to take place at Christmas, I want all my movies to take place at Christmas so they rerun on television at Christmas.‘The Nice Guyswas Christmas. I thinkThe Last Boy Scoutis Christmas. He does it over and over again as a theme.”

Don’t expect the McClanes to work things out in Die Hard 6

Willis andLive Free or Die Harddirector Len Wiseman keep talking about a sixthDie Hardfilm. Holly’s lastDie HardwasDie Hard 2. Die Hard with a Vengeancehad McClane stubbornly holding out on calling her, but the closest we get is a phone call as the sequel rolls credits.

ByLive FreeandA Good Day to Die Hard, McClane is estranged from his kids.Live Freesees McClane reunite with Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and inA Good Day,McClane shares the adventure with his son Jack (Jai Courtney). Bedelia all but ruled out a reconciliation in the nextDie Hardsequel, assuming the series has moved on to the younger generation of McClanes.

“No,” Bedelia said. “Didn’t they kind of move on to my daughter being grown up?”

In a 2004 interview, Bedelia implied that early scripts forDie Hard 3(eventuallyDie Hard With a Vengeance) included Holly, but now she clarified she was never in it.

“I was never spoken to aboutDie Hard 3,” Bedelia said. “I think they called to ask if they could use my voice. They wanted me at the end of the phone. Is there someone talking? Is that supposed to be me? Does it sound like me? They have actors who can do that.”

Die Hard 2 wanted more Al Powell, and VelJohnson wished he could have done more

AfterDie Hard,VelJohnson landed an even more pivotal role for himslf. He played Carl Winslow, a policeman father in the TGIF sitcomFamily Matters. VelJohnson shared how a producer ofFamily MatterssawDie Hardand asked VelJohnson to audition for the series.

By the timeDie Hard 2was in production, VelJohnson was filmingFamily Matters. Powell still has a cameo in the sequel. Since it is set at Dulles Airport when terrorists overtake the airport to free a dictator, McClane faxes some fingerprints to his old buddy Al in Los Angeles.

“I must say, Joel Silver was very angry with me because I couldn’t be in the whole second film because I was doingFamily Mattersat the time,” VelJohnson said. “He said, ‘That show is never going to work.’ I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m contracted to do this TV show.’ I was only in the second film for one little scene. I was very upset I wasn’t in the whole film because I wanted to be in the second film, but I couldn’t.”

Bedelia filmed her entire Die Hard 2 part in three days

Die Hard 2was able to reunite much of the cast ofDie Hardone. Having reconciled, the McClanes were visiting Holly’s family in D.C. Besides Powell’s cameo, TV reporter Richard Thornburg was on Holly’s flight.

Since Holly’s role in the sequel was sitting on the plane waiting to land, it only took three days to film. Holly figures out there’s a problem the flight crew isn’t sharing, and once again stops Thornburg from using the situation to forward his career, but there’s only so much she can do sitting on a plane.

“It wasn’t as much fun though,” Bedelia said. “You know, I only worked about three days onDie Hard 2.I’m on the plane.”

DeSouza almost wrote Die Hard 3 on a boat

The original plan forDie Hard 3was to have the McClanes on an oceanliner. By 1992,Under Siegealready did “Die Hardon a boat,” but De Souza said he was still working on the boat sequel before it fell through.

“Joel and I and Larry [Gordon] had talked about doingDie Hard 3. The third one was going to be on an oceanliner. NotSpeed [2: Cruise Control]. It was going to be they take a vacation to get away from all this stuff and it happens.”

Ultimately, Silver and Gordon left theDie Hardfranchise. Cinergi hooked up with 20th Century Fox to produceDie Hard with a Vengeance, based on Jonathan Hensleigh’s scriptSimon Says. McTiernan returned though and did ask De Souza to work on it.

“Then when the property was I guess sold to the independent production company, John McTiernan brought me in,” De Souza said. “[Holly] would’ve been in the movie had I done it. McTiernan brought me in originally to adapt that script but I was contractually involved with another project I started and couldn’t get away from it.”

De Souza’s subliminal reference for Hans Gruber

With Alan Rickman’s portrayal, Hans Gruber became one of the most memorable villains in cinema history. However, De Souza realized after the fact that he’d borrowed the name Hans Gruber from a 1966 spy comedy.

“I realized it wasOur Man Flint,” De Souza said.

The Flint series only lasted two movies, with James Coburn playing secret agent Derek Flint in an answer to the then-new James Bond franchise. Michael St. Clair plays a character named Hans Gruber in the sequel toIn Like Flint.

St. Clair’s Hans Gruber was merely a henchman for the evil organization known Galaxy. Flint easily kills him in a toilet. De Souza liked the name and the rest is history.