The Complete History of the ‘Die Hard’ Franchise

Die Hard spawned a massive five-film franchise. It’s inspired endless ripoffs, it got its own video games, it’s now considered one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. But did you know Die Hard was originally written as a sequel to a totally different movie?

Yup, it’s true. Die Hard is based on a novel called Nothing Lasts Forever, which was written by author Roderick Thorp as a sequel to his own book, The Detective, which was adapted into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra as the gritty NYPD cop, Joe Leland. After the success of The Detective as both novel and film, Thorp decided to write a sequel, which became Nothing Lasts Forever, about Leland trapped in a skyscraper with terrorists.

A sequel film was then developed for Sinatra, but it never came together. After Sinatra got older, the Leland character was rewritten and the connection to The Detective was removed. The new script was called … Die Hard. 

And then: Many more Die Hards followed. For the full story of this franchise, check out our latest video, which chronicles Die Hard’s ups and downs through the years as movies, books, video games, and more. Plus, we’ll tell you about the Die Hard projects that never quite happened through the years, including Die Hard TV shows.

Watch the complete history of Die Hard below;

READ MORE: The Single Worst Post-Release Change in All of Star Wars

If you liked that video about the complete history of the Die Hard franchise, check out more of our videos below, including a slew of Die Hard trivia you might not know, our list of the top five worst Die Hard rip-offs, and a complete history of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Plus, there’s tons more over at ScreenCrush’s YouTube channel. Be sure to subscribe to catch all our future episodes.