1. As with the first film, the action in Die Hard 2 takes place on Christmas Eve. It's two years since the Nakatomi Tower Incident and John McClane (Bruce Willis) is waiting for his wife to land at Washington Dulles International Airport when terrorists take over the air traffic control system.
This story was adapted from Walter Wager's novel 58 Minutes, which has the same premise but differs slightly. In the novel Frank Malone, a divorced NYPD captain, must stop terrorists who take JFK international airport hostage while his daughter's plane circles overhead. He has just 58 minutes to do so before the plane crashes.
2. Roderick Thorp, who wrote the novel Nothing Lasts Forever, upon which the first Die Hard film was based, receives credit for creating "certain original characters", although his name is misspelled onscreen as "Roderick Thorpe".
3. One of the writers of the screenplay, Steven E. de Souza, later admitted in an interview for the book 'Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie' that the villains were based on America's "Central American" meddling, primarily the Iran–Contra affair.
4. Despite the above fact, not wanting to get the studio into potential legal trouble, de Souza stated that General Ramon Esperanza, the ruthless drug lord, came from Val Verde, a fictitious Latin-American country that he created. de Souza had previously used the country of Val Verde (which translates as Green Valley) in the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando, the 1988 US television series Supercarrier, and he would go on to use it in the 2003 series Adventure Inc., and his 2015 Devil's Due comic book Sheena.
5. Alpena Airport in Northern Michigan was chosen for filming because of its propensity for snowfall, but due to unseasonably good weather a lack of snowfall before and during filming meant artificial snow had to be used throughout.
6. Die Hard 2 was the first film to use digitally composited live-action footage with a traditional matte painting that had been photographed and scanned into a computer. It was used for the last scene, which took place on a runway
7. According to John Leguizamo in his autobiography, his role was intended to be much larger until the filmmakers realized how short he was. His part was cut down to one line which was dubbed by someone else.
8. Black & Decker paid to have its cordless drill featured in a scene with Bruce Willis. When the scene was cut from the finished film the company sued 20th Century Fox in the first-ever product placement lawsuit for a film. The $150,000 claim was settled out of court.
9. Die Hard 2 outdid it's predecessor in a number of ways, not least of which was in body count. 23 characters were confirmed to have died during the first Die Hard film, whereas in Die Hard 2 that number is 271 (making this film the highest body count of any in the Die Hard series), including 235 in one single plane crash!
Die Hard 2 also bested the massive box office success of Die Hard. The film had a budget of $70 million and made $239.5 million worldwide, almost doubling that of the first Die Hard film.
10. Die Hard 2 received it's US television premiere on what was then known as TBS Superstation, and later in the UK on ITV. The version of the film that first aired was heavily dubbed by voice actors, and is legendary for sounding nothing like the actors who played their respective roles. Most noteworthy, McClane's famous line "Yipee-ki-yay motherfucker" was dubbed into "Yipee-ki-yay Mr. Falcon" even though there's no character in the film named Mr. Falcon.
Previously
10 Things You Might Not Know About Die Hard
Follow Geek Dave on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment