On Christmas Day 2024, Netflix delivered the latest in a seemingly endless line of cool action movies that are ultimately doomed to become the digital equivalent of fossils buried on the streaming giant's servers. Carry On is an action thriller set at LAX in which Taron Egerton's TSA officer must thwart a plot to release a deadly nerve agent on an airplane. In other words, it was a Christmas action movie set entirely in an airport, and that's why it was inevitably indebted to Die Hard 2.

That particular action sequel has a bit of a strange legacy, one that extends beyond influencing Netflix's middling movies. While the 1988 original sits at the top of almost every one die hard movie rankings.1990's Die Hard 2 is surely a contender for second best. The legacy sequels dropped out of the conversation by turning Bruce Willis' John McClane into yet another generic action superhero archetype, fresh off the heels of Die Hard 2 and 1995's Die Hard trilogy. But if you go by what critics said when Die Hard 2 arrived, you might put it behind Revenge. According to many reviewers, the sequel tried too hard to imitate its predecessor, creating the same situation, tone and story rhythm, while failing to do anything original.

Even her co-star seems to share that opinion. Posting on the AICN forums back in 2007 (via Rotten tomatoes) Willis revealed that Die Hard 2 was his "least favorite and least fun" of all the films in the franchise. Why? The star seemed to feel that the film's critics essentially got it right, with Willis parroting that the most common criticism of the film was that it was "too self-referentially precious". He also felt that the story was "all over the place and suffers from severe non-claustrophobia".

But it seems there may be another big reason Willis doesn't like Die Hard 2, and it has to do with a fundamental disagreement about the way John McClane should have been played.

Die Hard 2 sees John McClane, now an LAPD lieutenant, take on a whole new gang of terrorists while trapped at Dulles Airport in Washington. To be fair to its critics, the film is very much a recreation of the first, only in an airport setting rather than a skyscraper. But Die Hard was outstanding, so in a sense you have to wonder what's not so bad about more of the same? For Bruce Willis, however, it was completely the wrong way to approach the sequel, at least according to Renee Harlin.

In 2022, the director talked to Empire about making Die Hard 2, at one point revealing that Willis came into the project with ambitions to make McClane a more down-to-earth character. As Harlin explained, Willis went from "TV star to movie star overnight" thanks to the success of the original "Die Hard," and that quick transformation seemed to give the actor a sense of ownership over his character. Harlin claimed that Willis "had the idea from the beginning that he wanted to play John McClane completely straight now, that this movie had to be serious." Of course, no one watches a Die Hard movie for its naturalism, and that's a point Harlin clearly understands better than its star. The director continued:

"I told him, 'That's not the John McClane that the audience wants.' They feel like you're their friend now and they don't want to lose their friend." We had a big disagreement about this. I said, “Yeah, not in real life, but this is a movie Die hard.'"

The disagreement led to a meeting between Willis, Harlin, and producer Joel Silver, where the trio decided that Willis could deliver the lines his way as many times as he wanted. But he'll also have to give Harlin at least one humorous take on the material. "He did it reluctantly, not so happily," said the director, who used every soft moment he could in the final cut. This ongoing conflict between director and actor led to one particular moment when Willis almost got away with completely avoiding one of the best lines in Die Hard 2.

Bruce Willis wasn't the only one unsure about the content of his Die Hard sequel. 20th Century Fox (now followed by 20th Century Studios Disney's acquisition of Fox in 2019) initially wanted to replace the large airliner crash in Die Hard 2 with a UPS plane crashbefore the test audience to shake them from that idea. Unfortunately for Renny Harlin, nothing seemed to shake Willis from his belief in a more down-to-earth John McClane. Asked to recall a particularly difficult moment on the set of Die Hard 2, Harlin revealed that Bruce Willis almost got away with not saying one of the film's best lines. It comes when McClane asks an airline representative to use her fax machine, only for the woman to suggest they meet after her shift ends. John then flashes his wedding ring and says, “Just the fax, ma'am. Just the fax."

According to Harlin, firing this beat was "just painful," as Willis seems to have been particularly adamant about his more serious attitude toward McClane:

“Bruce hated that (line). He spent an hour there at the counter while I begged him and Joel (Silver) pitched in to get him to say it once, out of a total of 15, but it's in the movie and people love it.

Harlin also explained that the line was more about maintaining McClane's humor from Die Hard, noting how it "shows that he cares about his wife. There's no doubt that McClane's charisma and everyman appeal were crucial to the success of those early Die Hard films, and it certainly seems strange that Willis wants to tone it down for the film. But to be fair, this is just Harlin's recollection on set, and despite downplaying the quality of Die Hard 2, Willis hasn't really told his side of things. Either way, Harleen won in the end. The 1990 sequel ended up recreating the tone of the original, and despite what critics say, it remains one of the best in the series, even if it inspired an endless stream of streaming imitations for decades to come.