Early last month a shortlist was revealed of people being considered to direct Die Hard 5 after Noam Murro left the job so he could concentrate on 300: Battle Of Artemisia. On the list were interesting directors such as Joe Cornish, Justin Lin, and Nicolas Winding Refn, and there was also the slightly hacky John Moore. Guess who Fox has gone for?
Yup, according to Deadline, John Moore has got the job. The best you can say about him as a director is that he’s efficient, creating movies that are watchable but which aren’t quite as good as they ought to be. He’s helmed Behind Enemy Lines, Flight Of The Phoenix, The Omen and Max Payne, none of which are actually that much cop.
However the director of Die Hard 5 needed to please both the studio and Bruce Willis. All Moore’s movies have been made for the studio, so they already have a good relationship and apparently Willis was sold on the director’s love of the John McClane character and his approach to shooting action-heavy shots without using an abundance of CGI. You can’t help but feel that while the result may have pleased both sides, the hiring of Moore is a bit of a compromise, as he may helm a technically well exectued Die Hard movie, but it’s tough to imagine he’ll actually make a good one.
Die Hard 5 will be shot in Russia, although no story details have been released yet. It isn’t known when the movie will shoot, but it’s believed Willis wants to make it fairly soon, before he makes a follow-up to Red next year (which Breck Eisner is likely to direct).