Movies

Sequel Bits: 'A Good Day To Die Hard,' 'Step Up Revolution,' 'Zoolander 2'

By Russ Fischer

Sequels, always sequels! Check out the comments recently made by the director of the latest Die Hard film, and parse them in a way that might tell us whether the film is going to be worth a damn or not. Then stick around for the other items listed below.

  • Director John Moore talks about the tone of A Good Day to Die Hard,
  • Step Up Revolution won't cut a scene that might be seen as distasteful in the wake of Aurora,
  • the Waiting to Exhale sequel gets a screenwriter,
  • and Ben Still wants to make Zoolander 2, but it isn't happening yet.

    • Empire talked to John Moore, who is now working on the fifth John McClane movie, A Good Day to Die Hard. The movie goes from New York to Moscow, where wisecracking and perpetually troubled former cop McClane (Bruce Willis) gives his son (Jai Courtney) an assist. There's a car chase that Moore says is " taking us 78 days to shoot." That's serious.

    He also suggests there will be less of the glib tone for which the series is partially known, saying,

    No, because that's preposterous! 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 said, he allows,

    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...

    Gangster Squad, meanwhile, isn't the only film that had people wondering about cuts after last week's shooting in Aurora, CO. Another is Step Up Revolution, the 3D film from Summit in which, as THR says, "a troupe of dancers enter a room wearing gas masks" and carrying smoke cannisters.

    While Summit did pull ad materials that have reference to that scene, the film won't be cut. In part, that's a practical decision, rather than some display of corporate backbone. The film opens tomorrow, which means it has been in exhibitor hands this week. Cutting it would have been a difficult option. The company said in a statement:

    Summit Entertainment's Step Up Revolution is an uplifting film that celebrates the redemptive power of dance. There is a brief scene in the film in which a troop of dancers enter a room wearing gas masks as props and the dancers immediately go into a choreographed routine. Because of last week's tragic events in Colorado, Summit immediately removed television advertising that briefly showcased that scene from the film. The scene also briefly appeared in a trailer released three months ago that the studio is no longer actively servicing. Having taken these steps, Summit will open this inspirational, nonviolent film in theatres nationwide this weekend as originally edited.

    Step Up Revolution stars Kathryn McCormick, from So You Think You Can Dance, along with Ryan Guzman, Adam Sevani, Misha Gabriel and Peter Gallagher.

    You might recall that Forest Whitaker's film Waiting to Exhale is getting a sequel, called Getting Happy. Exhale was based on Terry McMillian's novel of the same name, and the author also scripted the first draft of the sequel, before passing the work on to Lori Laken Hutcherson. Now the script is in new hands: Michael Elliot, who wrote Just Wright, and Like Mike. [THR]

    Finally, with Ben Stiller doing press for The Watch, he's being asked (again) about Zoolander 2. He tells HitFix much the same thing he's told other outlets: there's a good script, and he wants to make it, but things aren't in place yet. See the video below:

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