“…I don’t know whether it’s post-financial crash or whatever, but I don’t think people are in the mood for that bollocks anymore. People are well savvy to the cynical reheating of any product, any franchise. Any shit won’t do. The bar’s a bit higher.”

That’s director John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Max Payne) on what he’ll be avoiding as he picks up the pieces of the Die Hard franchise that Len Wiseman’s neutered 4th movie left behind. The director spoke with Empire in their latest issue, and he let loose that bit up there in response to the suggestion that it might be a “light-hearted romp,” right after calling the idea “preposterous!”

He’s a man of blunt expression by the sound of it, but they also got him to speak on the tone resulting from sticking John McClane in Russia, and the scale of the production.

“There are a couple of great gags and a couple of great McClanisms. It’s not like he this idiot, bumbling around Moscow making ‘America won the Cold War’ jokes. It’s not Carry On Die Hard, I can assure you…”

“The scope along goes from New York to Moscow. It’s very, very international. There’s a car chase through Moscow that’s taking us 78 days to shoot. So… yeah. That should answer your question!”

I like Moore’s no-bullshit attitude towards things, and I’m crossing my fingers this will be an Expendables 2 kind of thing where everybody has realized that action movies are still allowed to have nutsacks actually filled with something. There’s still no confirmation of the rating or any footage obviously, so we still have to wait and see if this is on the right track or not.

via JoBlo