Stories from the set

Combat firearms cannot use blank cartridges without special attachments or a special barrel design: the weapon's automatic mechanism simply will not work. Therefore, the scene of swapping magazines from live to blank and back again looks completely unnatural.

The grenades thrown at McClane on the plane are M30 grenades — the training version of the M26 grenade (they are marked on the body with RFX55). The M26's detonation delay is 4-5 seconds. The first grenade would have detonated before the last one was thrown.

When the terrorists land the plane by lowering the horizon line by 60 m, they choose a plane with almost empty tanks ("its tanks are dry as a martini"). Nevertheless, from the impact with the runway, the airliner explodes almost immediately, as if its tanks were full of fuel.

The film is based on Walter Wager's novel "58 Minutes".

In the original version of the script for Die Hard (1988), John McClane joked about the film only a few times. Most of the jokes John says were improvised by Bruce Willis. During the filming of the sequel, Bruce Willis was free to improvise as much as he saw fit.

Val Verde is a fictional Latin American country. The same country name was used in the film Commando (1985).

An elderly woman on a plane is reading a book that looks like the novel "Lethal Weapon." Joel Silver was the producer of the films "Lethal Weapon" (1987), "Die Hard" (1988), and "Die Hard 2" (1990).

Black & Decker paid the producers to advertise a cordless drill in one of the scenes featuring Bruce Willis. During editing, this scene was cut from the film. Black & Decker sued 20th Century Fox, which became the first lawsuit over product placement in film. The parties settled the dispute without a trial.

The phrase "Yipee-ki-yay, motherfucker!" is used in all five films.

Filming was originally planned to take place in Minnesota, but that year Minnesota received too little snow, so filming was moved to Michigan.