Bonus Episode: “Is “Die Hard” A Christmas Movie?

Tis the season to ask this essential question: Is “Die Hard” a Christmas movie?

Plenty of people already answer that with an emphatic “yes!” They’ve already made watching “Die Hard” one of their holiday season traditions. But is that only because “Die Hard” takes place over Christmas? Or, do they feel “Die Hard” captures something essential about the holiday season? Does it capture the Christmas Spirit?

Among the more emphatic “yesses!” is Steve de Souza’s. Steve wrote the screenplay for “Die Hard” (in addition to the screenplays for plenty of other classic action movies, too: 48 Hrs, Commando, Streetfighter, Judge Dredd).

As Steve will discuss, “Die Hard” was based on a novel which, itself, was a sequel. Nobody making it had the least inkling that it would become an iconic Christmas movie. They would have been happy with Die Hard just being a great action movie.

Steve uses the classic Hollywood Christmas movie “White Christmas” as his baseline. Not only does Steve make the case that “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie up there with classics like “White Christmas”, he proves that “Die Hard” is a much better Christmas movie for a whole lot of reasons.

Next we’ll ask “Would Freddy Kruger make a good Santa Claus replacement hire?