This week we asked you to name your favorite ‘festive flick that thrills.’ In other words, your favorite thriller or mystery movie that’s set around the holidays.
Die Hard was the winner by hard mile. Die Hard 2 was adapted from the 1987 novel 58 Minutes, by my friend, Walter Wager. Walter would have been so proud.
So I thought you might enjoy some Die Hard trivia in this weekend’s Saturday Special.
- The character played by Bruce Willis — John McClane — wasn’t fully developed when production began. It wasn’t until about halfway through production that the director, John McTiernan, and Bruce Willis had an insight about a defining characteristic of John McClane — he’s a guy who doesn’t like himself very much but is doing the best he can in a bad situation.
It’s ideal to know your characters inside and out, including their strengths and weaknesses and driving motivators, BEFORE the writing begins. But characters also reveal themselves with time, and with every reader who invests them with their personalities as well. - A lot of the dialogue was improvised because the screenplay was being tweaked almost constantly during filming.
The same is true of my mystery serial False Truth. While Beth Dexter and I have an outline for the upcoming books, we’re constantly making adjustments because of the nature of the serial being fast-paced, and because we’re publishing almost in real time. - Die Hard has been translated and released in several countries under different titles. In Spain, it’s Crystal Jungle, and in Poland it’s The Glass Trap.
We’ve adjusted the titles for the German translations of my Hunt for Jack Reacher books, too. Don’t Know Jack became Who is Jack?, Jack and Kill became Jack on the Trail, and Jack in a Box became Appointment with Jack. - The original movie poster didn’t feature Bruce Willis because he wasn’t known as an action movie star at the time.
Speaking of revealing unknown faces, have you seen the voice behind Judge Willa Carson? Jodie Bentley narrates the audio books Secret Justice and Wasted Justice through Audible, and if you caught Tuesday’s blog you saw her picture and maybe watched the video of her theatrical reel.
Thanks to IMDB for the trivia above.
Just can’t get enough of Die Hard, the “festive flick that thrills”? Here’s a fun little quiz to test your Die Hard knowledge:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/quiz/2013/jul/16/quiz-die-hard-test-your-knowledge
Let me know how you do!
I got 18 out of 20 🙂 It was easy and difficult! It’s been at least a year since I’ve watched any of them. I’m going to watch them all again before the next one is released! Don’t care what critics say…I loved them all !! Thanks for the fun 😀
18 out of 20! Impressive, Diane!