Trivia

Originally titled "Simon Says" (where Zeus was scripted as a woman) and was considered as the third sequel to Lethal Weapon.

While the highway scenes are supposed to take place on the Saw Mill Parkway in Westchester County, NY, they were actually filmed on the Merritt Parkway in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and on the Taconic Parkway in Putnam County, NY.

When the bomb goes off in the Bonwit Teller department store, there is an "Atlantic Courier" truck parked in front of the store that gets flipped over. In Die Hard, Hans Gruber and the other terrorists arrive at Nakatomi Plaza in a "Pacific Courier" truck.

Simon calls a radio announcer to report that there is a bomb in a school. The name of the announcer is Elvis Duran, an actual radio announcer on the station Z100 (100.3 FM).

First version of the screenplay was based on a spec script by James Haggin called "Troubleshooter" which involved terrorists seizing control of a Caribbean cruise ship. The idea was abandoned after Steven Seagal's Under Siege went into production. In 1992 John Milius was hired to write another version of the story. In 1993 Doug Richardson and John Fasano simultaneously worked on two separate Die Hard 3 scripts which were both rejected by Bruce Willis. This time the plot was concerned with terrorists taking control of the L.A. subway system.

The sex scene between Jeremy Irons and Sam Phillips was added in at the last minute because John McTiernan knew that the film would get an R rating and he might as well put a sex scene in.

During its Pay Per View run in 1996, a bonus featurette followed the presentation of the movie which included footage of some scenes with additional dialogue such as the scene in the Federal Reserve Bank where Felix Little asks "You're in the flower business, Mr. Vanderflug?" and added is Simon replying "It's Vanderfluge, it rhymes with tulip." explaining why Felix pronounces the name correctly from that point on. This featurette is not included in the Special Edition DVD.

When Simon, posing as the city engineer, meets Ricky Walsh, you can see a blurry but visible red sign on the building in the background. This is the Home Insurance Company building and that company purchased the red cover so that it would be seen in the movie as they felt that the original bronze signage would not be visible.

In the DVD commentary, Jonathan Hensleigh says that the first hour of the film is his original "Simon Says" script word for word. He only changed the characters from the script, so that it would actually feel a part of the "Die Hard" series.

Samuel L. Jackson's look in the film was Jackson's idea after he'd done extensive research on his character by studying books on Malcolm X.

Sam Phillips, in real life a pop singer, was invited to test for the role based upon a photo from one of her CD covers.

As in the previous Die Hard, the German spoken in this movie is mostly grammatically incorrect. A few lines are so wrong that they have to be considered gibberish (most notably the exchange of the fake cops, who are given the briefcase bomb by Zeus (Samuel L. Jackson)). In the German release, however, all of the lines that were German in the original movie are grammatically correct, fitting the context and some of the terrorists even have an East German accent.

The R2 DVD was originally released with a TV-like edit with all swearing removed and key scenes like the elevator gunfight cut out. The DVDs were all recalled then released as the original edit.

Jeremy Irons replaced David Thewlis.

Despite not being set at Christmas, it still references the previous films (which were set at Christmas) with sarcastic comments regarding Santa Claus. The shoplifting kids also states that "It is Christmas you could steal city hall." Another reference takes places when McClane is in the aquaduct, mentioning "We got a report of some guy coming through here with eight reindeer", McClane then shoots the terrorist and continues, "They said he was a jolly old fat guy, with a snowy white beard, and a cute little red-and-white- suit. I'm surprised you guys didn't see him."

Sean Connery was John McTiernan's very first choice for the role of Simon Gruber. He turned down the role, saying that he didn't want to play such a diabolical villain.

The studio told screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh to remove the scenes with McClane walking around Harlem wearing a sign that says, "I hate niggers." They allowed him to keep the scene when he threatened to take the script to another studio.

In Greek mythology, Zeus was a god who summoned lightning and thunder. In this movie, Zeus Carver is an electrician.

Danny Cannon was approached to direct but he was more interested in making Judge Dredd at the time.

Although Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson had both appeared in Loaded Weapon 1 and Pulp Fiction, this is the first movie where the two appear on-screen together.

The first "Die Hard" movie to be based on an original screenplay. Die Hard is based on the novel by 'Roderick Thorpe', Die Hard 2 is based on a novel by Walter Wager and Live Free or Die Hard is based on an article by John Carlin.

The line spoken by McClane "Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo" is taken from a song called "Flowers on the Wall" by The Statler Brothers, which also appears in Pulp Fiction, also featuring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Willis is singing along to this song on the radio when he runs into Marcellus Wallace.

There is a mathematical formula that can be applied to the St. Ives problem, called the Geometric Progression Formula, which is a(r^n - 1)/(r-1), "a" being the first term, "r" being the common ratio, and "n" being the number of terms of the geometric series. The 7 wives would be "a". The following 7s would be the common ratio. "N" would be 4 (i.e. kittens, cats, sacks, and wives). This translates to 7(7^4 - 1)/(7-1) = 7(2401-1)/6 = 7(2400)/6 = 16800/6 = 2800. This is all assuming the narrator going to St. Ives. and the man with seven wives are excluded.

On the DVD commentary Director John McTiernan mentions that Dick Cheney appears in a scene. He actually says "here he is", but Dick Cheney is not in the film - the person shown in the scene has a slight physical resemblance but is not Dick Cheney. The director made an error.

The name Simon Gruber uses as an alias is 'Peter Krieg'. 'Krieg' is German for 'war'.

When McClane boards the elevator at the Federal Reserve with Karl and the rest of Simon's men, during the casual conversation Karl is having with McClane, Karl refers to the elevator as the "lift". This would potentially betray Karl, who is trained in infiltration and disguised as a Federal Reserve guard, as being European and therefore a potential imposter since "lift" is the European term for elevator.

The 2003 R1 DVD version includes the original ending showing McClane and Simon playing a game of 'chicken' with a rocket launcher. In this original version, Simon Gruber and his crew get away with the gold and months later, McClane tracks Simon down in Eastern Europe (where in Europe is debated: McClane mentions Germany, but people in the background are heard speaking Hungarian) The number on the bottom of the aspirin bottle (at the phone booth) leads McClane to Gruber. The gold was turned into small miniatures of the Empire State building and smuggled out of the country. McClane is thrown off the force, with the police thinking that he may actually be involved in the heist. The "game" that McClane and Simon play is about riddles that McClane tells Simon, and he is supposed to figure out the answer, or McClane will force him to fire a rocket launcher with its directional arrows removed, so neither will know which direction it will fire in until it is actually fired. The scene climaxes with McClane forcing Simon at gunpoint to fire the rocket launcher, which kills Simon, and McClane is revealed to be wearing a flak-jacket, which would have saved his life if the rocket launcher had fired at him instead of Simon. The studio objected to the ending, saying that it made McClane too cruel and heartless, whereas screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh stated that that was exactly the point: to show that McClane had been pushed over the edge by the events of that day, and then subsequently losing everything as a result of Simon.

There are two solutions to the water jug riddle in the park, at the elephant fountain. To place exactly 4 gallons of water on the scales when you only have two jugs which hold 3 and 5 gallons respectively, you must do either of the following. 1. Fill the 5 gallon jug and decant the water into the 3 gallon jug. This leaves two gallons in the big jug. 2. Empty the 3 gallon jug and pour in the two gallons from the 5 gallon jug, leaving space for one gallon in the small jug. 3. Refill the 5 gallon jug and pour water from it into the 3 gallon jug until the small jug's full. 4. That leaves exactly four gallons in the big jug; put it on the scale and the bomb is disarmed. The second method is: 1. Fill the 3 gallon jug and pour the water into the 5 gallon jug. 2. Refill the 3 gallon jug, and pour into the 5 gallon jug until the big jug is full, leaving one gallon in the small jug. 3. Empty the big jug, and transfer the one gallon from the small jug to the big jug. 4. Refill the small jug and pour all three gallons into the 5 gallon jug, resulting in four gallons in the big jug. Place the big jug on the scale and the bomb is disarmed.

Each of the Gruber brothers, Simon and Hans, recruit a Karl on his team. Karl in Die Hard is the terrorist shot by Sgt. Powell at the end. In this film Karl is stationed at the Federal Reserve bank and is killed by McClane in the elevator sequence.