Die Hard 2

Evergreen Boeing 747 (registration N473EV) used in the film

Filming of the Dulles airport concourse scenes took place in the Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX

The screenplay was adapted from Walter Wager's 1987 novel 58 Minutes. The novel has the same plot but differs slightly: a police officer must stop terrorists who take an airport hostage while his daughter's plane circles overhead, and has 58 minutes to do so before the plane crashes. Roderick Thorp, who wrote the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, upon which Die Hard was based, receives credit for creating "certain original characters", although his name is misspelled onscreen as "Roderick Thorpe".

One of the writers of the screenplay, Steven E. de Souza, later admitted in an interview for the book Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie that the villains were based on America's "Central American" meddling, primarily the Iran–Contra affair.[5]

The film was originally budgeted at $40 million.[6] Bruce Willis was paid $7.5 million for reprising his role for the film.[7][8] Producer Joel Silver was accused of profligate spending and it was claimed the film cost $62–70 million.[9][6] Fox domestic distribution president Tom Sherak dismissed the $70 million claim as "absurd".[6] It was reported at the end of filming that Silver had been relieved of day-to-day producing duties.[10]

Scenes of Dulles airport in the snow were to be filmed in Denver but filming was scrapped due to warm weather. Some outdoor scenes were filmed in Alpena, Michigan, while others needing to accommodate the landing of the 747 with snow were filmed at former Kincheloe Air Force Base in Kincheloe, Michigan.[11] Other scenes were filmed on a soundstage in Los Angeles using fake snow.[10]

Die Hard 2 was the first film to use digitally composited live-action footage with a traditional matte painting that had been photographed and scanned into a computer. It was used for the last scene, which took place on a runway.[12]

According to Franco Nero, Silver got the idea to cast him after he saw movie posters of Nero hanging in the office of their mutual accountant. Nero did not want to do Die Hard 2 because he did not like the script and he had committed to do the film Breath of Life. Finally, Silver scheduled Nero's scenes in such a way that the actor could do both films.[13]

In a trailer for the film screened during Christmas 1989, the film had a planned release date of June 29, 1990. This was brought forward to June 22; however, following claims of the film running over time and budget, the release date was pushed back two weeks to July 4.[6]

The film debuted on video in the United States on January 31, 1991, and it was the most rented video in its first week above Navy SEALs[14] and sold a record 505,000 units for rental.[15]

The film became available on DVD on March 9, 1999, followed by a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD on July 10, 2001, as part of the Die Hard Ultimate Collection DVD and re-released again in early 2005 as a Widescreen Edition and June 19, 2007, followed by a Blu-ray release on November 20, 2007, and a re-release on January 29, 2013.[16]

Die Hard 2 exceeded all expectations by outdoing the box-office success of Die Hard.[17] The film had the largest pre-opening, earning $3.7 million from 1,828 theaters. For six years, it would hold this record until it was surpassed by Independence Day in 1996.[18] It had a wide release in 2,507 theaters in the United States and Canada, grossing $21.7 million its opening weekend.[19] Die Hard 2 went on to gross $117.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $122.5 million internationally, earning over $240 million worldwide,[1] almost doubling that of Die Hard. The film was re-released internationally in 1993 and made $216,339 more, which totaled its gross to $240.2 million.[1]

On Rotten Tomatoes, Die Hard 2 has an approval rating of 70% based on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "It lacks the fresh thrills of its predecessor, but Die Hard 2 still works as an over-the-top – and reasonably taut – big-budget sequel, with plenty of set pieces to paper over the plot deficiencies."[20] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 67 out of 100, based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[21] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[22]

Roger Ebert, who gave the original film a mixed review, described the sequel as "terrific entertainment", despite noting substantial credibility problems with the plot.[23] Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel dubbed the film as being as disappointing a sequel as Another 48 Hrs. and RoboCop 2, and said,

Whatever small pleasure there is to be found in this loud dud is due mostly to the residual good feelings from the first film... As played by Bruce Willis, McClane is still an engaging character, even if he is much less amusingly drawn this time. Willis is in there trying, but the qualities that helped to make his character sympathetic in the first film are missing. McClane no longer worries openly about his personal safety, as he did in the original movie. His quasi-cowboy personality from Die Hard is all but forgotten – he has become more of a Rambo and less of a Roy Rogers. And though the filmmakers try to establish McClane as resistant to advanced technology, this promising idea isn't developed.[24]

Empire magazine rated the film three out of five stars, while stating, "It's entertaining nonsense that doesn't quite manage to recapture the magic of the original. Still, there are some nice moments here, and Willis is on solid ground as the iconic McClane."[25]

Gene Siskel ranked the film as the sixth best movie of 1990.[26][27] Maxim magazine ranked the film's plane crash #2 on its list of "Greatest Movie Plane Crashes".[28]