Christmas Special: The Reader's Digest Version
I tend to write my posts late at night, so by the time you guys read this, there will be only twelve days until Christmas! So to celebrate tonight, in lieu of a partridge in a pear tree, I offer you...
A Talking Duck Fighting HYDRA!Yes, written by Larry "I Created GI Joe So You Bitches Can Suck It" Hama with art by Pasqual Ferry, this one's pretty much notable for two things, and two things only:
- Howard the Duck teams up with a group of Mall Santas and fights HYDRA at the north pole.
- It is not very good.
No, seriously. That's all there is.
When you work in a comic book store, a good 75% of the job is just finding ways to kill time while you wait for the end of the day to roll around. After all, bagging up back issues of ROM: Spaceknight and putting them in order isn't exactly the most mentally demanding task, so it's necessary to keep yourself occupied, and you can only go through about three rounds of 20 Questions before it stops being fun.
And that's how we ended up knocking out a good chunk of the evening after Phil stopped by on a little game I like to call Hollywood Pitch Meeting.
The Premise: You're in a Hollywood Pitch Meeting, trying to get the suits to give you a pile of money so that you can bring your cinematic vision to life!
The Hook: In a tribute to the single greatest Christmas-themed American action movie ever made, your pitch must start with the phrase: "It's like Die Hard...
"Examples:
"Okay, it's like Die Hard meets Ella Enchanted, but with a gang of European terrorists instead of an evil Fairy Godmother. I'm thinking we get a whole P.T. Anderson meets McG thing going on here."
or:
"It's like Die Hard on a trampoline."
Feel free to leave your own in the comments section of this very post! I think we can make this happen.
posted by Chris Sims at 12/12/2006 11:21:00 PM
55 Comments:
"It's like Die Hard meets Die Hard 2."
"It's like Die Hard meets Josie and the Pussycats,, because I want girls in leather pants and kitty ears blowing things up."
"It's like Die Hard meets Nell."
"It's like Die Hard meets Coyote Ugly, and the girls are the terrorists."
"It's like Die Hard meets Under Siege, but on a bus."
12/13/2006 1:58 AM
It's like Die Hard meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only with an Orthodox Sikh Indian-American family.
12/13/2006 2:03 AM
1) It's like Die Hard meets those Baby Einstein videos--no words, just classical music, babies and explosions.
2) It's like Die Hard meets Midnight Cowboy but instead of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman we get Angelina Jolie and Natalie Portman.
3) It's like Die Hard meets...actually, let's just remake Die Hard. If we start now the twenty-year limit will elapse before we're ready to release.
12/13/2006 2:25 AM
It's like Die Hard with Lesbians.
12/13/2006 2:34 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Nashville. Sylvester Stallone is an ex-Green Beret and aspiring country-music star and the Country Music label he's desperately trying to get signed at is taken over by terrorists.
12/13/2006 2:55 AM
Its like Die Hard except Bruce is leading a TEAM of bad-ass cops with attitude. Well, more soldiers than cops. And they're in one of those Peruvian temples instead of an office building. And instead of terrorist / thieves you've got a gang of Peruvians. Who have been enslaved by a genetically altered dromedary. Trust me. Dracullama will be HUGE. So really its like Die Hard meets Predator with vampires...
12/13/2006 4:06 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Disney on Ice, only there isn't actually any ice.
12/13/2006 4:07 AM
"It's like Die Hard meets Back to the Future. Evil future terrorists rescue Hans Gruber with a time machine, and an eccentric future scientist comes back to grab McClane with his own time machine to chase Gruber and his cohorts through time. It must include a segment with John McClane fighting off Gruber's suicide-bombing Velociraptors while riding a T-Rex."
12/13/2006 4:39 AM
"It's like Die Hard meets Doctor Who in a homeless shelter, with robot monkeys that like to punch people. It also has scantily-clad women wielding flame throwers while quoting Marcel Proust. It has it all - violence, romance, existential nuances - it's the feel-good hit of the summer!"
12/13/2006 6:09 AM
Lets raise this up the flagpole and see who salutes it...
It's like Die Hard, except the main character has the face of...like...a devil, yet, he has the soul of an angel. He sets about rescuing millions from some kind of terrorist bruhaha, some explosions, a helicopter, a bit...no...no a lot of face-punching, but no one can bare his revolting visage. So he ends up dying in battle...or does he, as its actually a broken heart that kills him...eh?...eh??
12/13/2006 6:40 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Jet Dream, but they're all lesbians.
12/13/2006 6:48 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Sister Act, with a sentient T-Rex in the hard-boiled cop role and singing robot nuns with machine gun arms instead of terrorists. And instead of an office building, it happens in a volcano in space.
And the nuns are all lesbians. Who can only be killed with a kick to the face. Which makes them explode.
12/13/2006 8:50 AM
It's called Horseshoe Nights, and it's like Die Hard, but with poker!
It's like Die Hard meets Bring It On!
It's like Die Hard, but with break dance fighting and beatboxing. We'll call it "Breakin' 3: Served Up"
12/13/2006 9:17 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Eddie, except the basketball team is the Harlem Globetrotters and they are all cancer survivors with radiation powers that speak pig-latin.
12/13/2006 9:26 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Mary Poppins, where the Banks family home is taken over by terrorists bent on forcing Mary Poppins to use her powers for their cause. In the film's climactic scene, Bert slides down the chimney firing two machine guns at the terrorists, while Mary utters the film's tagline: "A spoonful of bullets will help this medicine go down."
12/13/2006 9:38 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Snakes On A Plane.
Okay, that's exactly what it is.
SNAKES DIE HARD ON A PLANE!
12/13/2006 9:44 AM
It's like Die Hard meets the ISB. Actually that's probably a bad idea as the ridiculously high amount of punching, kicking, and explosions would surely cause any filmgoer's head to literally collapse from the sheer awesomeness of it all.
12/13/2006 10:03 AM
The following is from an idea for a role-playing game I want to run one of these Christmases. I post it here in the confidence that none of the possible players ever read anything about comic books.
It's like Die Hard at the North Pole. It takes place in December 1983. See, the modern image of Santa was influenced by the Coca Cola company back in the '30s, but in '83 we're in the middle of the Cola Wars. And Pepsi spies have just found out that Coke is releasing New Coke next year, so they're scared. So they figure they'll strike back by sending in a bunch of mercenaries to take over the North Pole and install a Pepsi version of Santa.
The mercenaries include stormtroopers from Star Wars, a version of Frosty the Snowman made evil because they built him with bits of coal arranged in a frown rather than a smile before they put the hat on, the reanimated corpse of the Little Match Girl, Yukon Cornelius, and Ralphie Parker (the kid from The Christmas Story; we'll say he grew up and became a sniper in the Korean War until he got his eye shot out and now he's all bitter and crazy).
So Coke has to get their own team together to go rescue Santa, and they have no time, so they just pick everyone they can get who was on TV in the fall of '83. They get Manimal, Remington Steele, Magnum, Chris Cagney, Uni from Dungeons and Dragons, Smurfette, Mr. Roarke, B.A. Baracus, Jo Polnicek, Mick Belker from Hill Street Blues, Schneider from One Day at a Time and the Fonz.
So the good guys fight their way through all the stormtroopers and mind-controlled elves and reindeer, and finally get to the big reveal: the guy Pepsi chose to be their Santa is one of their most famous spokesmen, who talked them into it because he loves kids so much:
Michael Jackson.
And then carnage ensues.
12/13/2006 10:24 AM
Matthew E: That is quite possibly the best premise for a movie ever.
12/13/2006 10:33 AM
"Okay, babe...picture this. It's Die Hard meets Home Alone meets Cocoon, as senior citizens band together to take back the nursing home from European tourists, whom the nearly-deaf seniors mistakenly believe to be "terrorists". It's got explosions, Ben-Hur-like wheelchair chase scenes, wacky senior-themed weapons (bedpan grenades, anyone?) and incontinence jokes gallore! In a world they barely remember, it's "Siege at Sunnydale: When Seniles Attack!"
12/13/2006 10:35 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Jingle all the way, with parts 'inspired by' Total Recall and Fifth Element. John McClane must hunt down the rarest toy in the mall for his daughter's Christmas present, which was stolen by germans from Canada. What he doesn't realize is that inside the doll is the greatest power in the universe, and he had his memory erased because last time he found the device it drove him insane.
12/13/2006 10:45 AM
"It's like Die Hard on the International Space Station with a smuggled aboard... fuck it, some supervillain shit. That's what we pay the touch-up writers for, right?"
12/13/2006 10:50 AM
"It's like Die Hard meets Lost In Translation. Bruce Willis runs around Tokyo having creepy awkward romantic scenes with Scarlett Johanssen, then blow up European terrorists in a Japanese karaoke bar.
"Then Scarlett gets naked. Seriously, I think we can pull this off."
12/13/2006 11:09 AM
Well, we've had all the "It's like Die Hard... On a bus" (Speed) and similar ideas to a ridiculous extent, so:
It's like Die Hard... In a High Rise Building!
And more generally, thanks for the insanity that is the ISB
12/13/2006 11:19 AM
It's like Die Hard meets The Remains of the Day only the butler goes Rambo on the British Nazis.
12/13/2006 11:48 AM
It's like Die Hard as rewritten by Laura Mulvey.
12/13/2006 12:14 PM
It's like Die Hard, but with delicious Hostess fruit pies!
12/13/2006 12:39 PM
What's sad is that I'd actually *really* like to see DeadPenguin's "Die Hard meets Back to the Future" movie, ha ha. That sounds AWESOME!
12/13/2006 1:04 PM
Dude, that's totally how I've started to review movies on my site:
http://www.sepiamoons.com/movies.html
I was inspired by the Hollywood factoid that Beverly Hills Cop script was pitched as "a cross between Chinatown, Dirty Harry, and Shampoo".
12/13/2006 2:09 PM
"It's like Die Hard meets The Seventh Seal."
12/13/2006 2:12 PM
"It's like Die Hard meets Lost In Translation."
Been there, done that.
12/13/2006 2:52 PM
Its like Die Hard meets Over the Top (greatest armwrestling movie ever) meets MegaForce (greatest secret elite fighting force known to man, 2nd to GI Joe) meets Staying Alive meets Every which Way but Loose... this movie will have the greatest star studed lineup.. all the greatest 80s stars that will have explosions, monkeys,dancing, secret wrist technique to save the day and ending with a "We are the World" singing... true glorious
(sry im a long time reader first time 'post'er)
12/13/2006 3:01 PM
It's like Die Hard meets The Muppet Movie meets Giant Robo, only instead of a skyscraper Kermit and the terrorists are battling in and on the gigantic, petrified corpse of GOD.
You know...for the kiddies!
12/13/2006 3:52 PM
Okay, so it's like Die Hard meets Amelie.
Where "Bruce" is a plucky, optomistic French girl who brings people together.... then blows the Hell out of them!
Or it could be Die Hard meets The Grinch That Stole Christmas. The Grinch would discover that all the Whos down in Who-ville are really terrorists bent on taking over Christmas with their seemingly innocent ways.
The Grinch would come tearing down the snowy mountain with his dog Max, guns a'blazing, and proceed to tear Cindy-loo Who in half with a rain of bulletfire.
It's Die Hard meets Wayne's World.
Except instead of driving an AMC Pacer, he'd drive TANK. And instead of it having a red licorice dispensor in the roof, it would dispense plastic explosives... and JUSTICE!!
(Meat Loaf could still play the bouncer at the club, though)
12/13/2006 3:56 PM
It's like Die Hard meets Nosferatu meets Mac and Me.
It's like Die Hard meets Santa Claus Conquers the Martians meets Trainspotting.
It's like Die Hard on Ice. (Um... Die Hard 2?)
Damn, it practically writes itself! Thanks for the inspiration.
12/13/2006 4:37 PM
"It's like Die Hard meets My Dinner With Andre. Wallace Shawn and Bruce Willis sit down for a nice dinner and a long, soul-searching, life-affirming exploratory conversation with great existential import while they blow away Eurotrash terrorists trying to steal their hors d'oeuvres."
"It's like Die Hard meets Best in Show, where a batch of ex-paramilitary SpecOps soldiers reunite as competing trainers at a dog show and have to fight off an invasion of terrorists trying to steal the Best Bomb Sniffing Dog in the World."
"It's like Die Hard meets Matthew Barney's Cremaster series. It's 46 hours long and none of it makes a fucking bit of sense at all, but there's lots of explosions, a lot of petroleum jelly, and a cameo by Bjork."
12/13/2006 4:44 PM
It's like Snakes on a Plane meets It's a Wonderful Life, only instead of snakes, we have terrorists, and instead of a plane, we have a skyscraper.
Also, Alan Rickman will replace Mr. Potter, and Clarence will be played by the dad on Family Matters.
And it will all take place on Christmas.
Now, if we could only come up with a title...
12/13/2006 5:03 PM
Oooh! I just thought of the tag line for the "Die Hard + Best in Show" one:
Sit. Stay. Play Dead.
And one more: "It's like Die Hard meets Emma, except after one too many mismatches, Bruce Willis blows Gwynneth Paltrow's stupid clueless ass away."
12/13/2006 5:04 PM
It's like Die Hard, Walking Tall, The Stand, and a number of other movies that collectively highlight the serious issues surrounding Viagra and erectile dysfunction.
12/13/2006 6:06 PM
It's like Die Hard, Walking Tall, The Stand, and a number of other movies that collectively highlight the serious issues surrounding Viagra and erectile dysfunction.
12/13/2006 6:10 PM
It's like Die Hard meets Frequency meets The Lake House, with a dash of Butterfly Effect.
Jack Rockstone was a hard-nosed cop with a gung-ho attitude. His brother Mike was a heroic firefighter. But on 9/11, Mike died when the second tower collapsed. Jack was thrown off the force for his drinking problem and not playing by anyone's rules but his own, and he's forced to move into a tiny new house when his wife files for divorce. He soon discovers that the previous tenant was one of the 9/11 terrorist hijackers, and that the house has a magical time-traveling mailbox that links him directly to 2001! Now, it's up to one cop to fight time and destiny in order to save his brother and prevent the worst tragedy in American history. But Jack Rockstone is about to realize that there are terrible consequences to meddling with the timestream, and an Anthrax-filled letter reminds him that the mail goes both ways. Starring Vin Diesel as Jack Rockstone.
It's like Die Hard meets Face/Off. Ninety minutes of nonstop gunfights and explosions.
12/13/2006 8:15 PM
It's like Die Hard meets My Dinner With Andre. One hour of people comparing life philosophies over dinner, until one of them shoots the other in the head. And kicks him off a building.
12/13/2006 9:05 PM
It's like Die Hard on the moon... the shark moon.
12/14/2006 12:08 AM
It's like Die Hard as written by Hunter S. Thompson, except that the hero's sidekick is a jive-talking hamster who can see 20 minutes into the future by drinking camomille tea.
12/14/2006 12:26 AM
"It's like Die Hard meets Driving Miss Daisy, only it's a musical, and it's done completely in Esperanto."
12/14/2006 12:26 AM
"It's like Die Hard before the terrorists showed up."
I like to think that's how something like American Beauty got pitched.
"It's like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon had a drunken brawl, and someone filmed the carnage."
"It's like Die Hard set in ancient Greece."
12/14/2006 9:25 AM
It's like Die Hard meets Wuthering Heights. Except it's a Christmas movie.
12/14/2006 11:59 AM
it's like Die Hard meets... Bridget Jones's Diary:
Officer Jack McClane smokes too much and drinks too much and could stand lose a few pounds.
His mom tries to set him up with the neighbor girl but he finds her too goofy and aloof.
He meets and falls head-over-heels for a girl on the force, but soon finds out what a two-timer she really is.
After finding and losing love, he discovers the neighbor girl was really the right one after all, and the two of them embark on a life of fun and adventure.
.... except fun and adventure to them is kickin' terrorist @$$ !!!!
12/14/2006 3:46 PM
It's like DIE HARD meets THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE starring the cast of THAT's SO RAVEN, with animation by Rankin/Bass and songs by America.
12/14/2006 4:51 PM
this is the greatest thread i have read in the past 3 minutes.
ok, it's like Die Hard, except inside the Statue of Liberty on the Planet of the Apes. what happens is, Detective John McClean gets blasted into space while trying to save the earth from a terrorist asteroid...
i actually went into huge detail on my stupid myspace account with this.
12/14/2006 8:57 PM
It's like Die Hard, but we replace everyone with animated penguins! Penguins are big these days! We can't lose!
12/15/2006 8:36 AM
"It's like Die Hard in a mall! A mall filled with zombies! Except the zombies are terrorists! So it's like Dawn of the Dead Die Harder!"
Verification word is "plxsedkl", the sound the execs would be making, 'cause they'd be speechless at the thought of how much money that would make.
12/15/2006 1:05 PM
Its like Die Hard meets Daddy Daycare. Matt Damon is just a normal American dad with five kids trying to make ends meet, that is until one day his big-shot neighbour, Alan Rickman, challenges him to the craziest all-family eat-off since Beethoven's 2nd! I'm envisioning pratfalls and slide whistles, and Rickman getting hit in the balls a few times in the trailer. I've already talked to his agent and he's willing to do a nude scene so I'm envisioning some kind of shower/tub mishap, we'll work it out in pre-prod. We might have to pc the cast up a bit, Bernie Mac can play the hapless police officer.
We've got ten days if we want to get this out by boxing day to cash in on the under twelves, so lets make this happen!
12/15/2006 10:30 PM
It;s like Die Hard meets The March of the Penguins. Only on rollerblades.
12/17/2006 2:14 PM
It's like Die Hard only underwater and with ninjas instead of terrorists.
Oh, wait, somebody already thought of that.
12/20/2006 1:43 AM
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