Earlier today the Internet began buzzing about Die Hard 5 after Vulture said Bruce Willis was taking the initiative in finding a director for the project. Word was at the top of his list was Swedish director Jorge Daniel Espinosa, who’s making his English-language debut with Safe House, a remake of his own movie starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. As it turns out, Espinosa didn’t get the gig, but someone did.
Deadline brings the news Noam Murro (Smart People) will direct the film with a script by Skip Woods (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The A-Team). However, Vulture’s sources say 20th Century Fox was less than impressed with Woods’s latest draft and Deadline says Willis still needs to be signed. Previous rumor said the working title for the film was Die Hard 24/7 and may feature another sibling of Hans Gruber, the franchise’s original villain played by Alan Rickman. You’ll also remember Jeremy Irons played Hans’s brother Simon in Die Hard With A Vengeance.
Murro apparently impressed Fox brass with his work on the recent campaign for the Halo video game. I’ve included one of his shorts directly below.
Willis, however, will be keeping busy as he is also in negotiations for a supporting role in Stephen Frears’s Lay the Favorite, Take the Dog, in which Rebecca Hall will star as a Vegas cocktail waitress who becomes one of the top sports gambling bookmakers. Justin Timberlake and Catherine Zeta-Jones are also in talks for roles.
