Live Free or Die Hard (also known as Die Hard 4 and released as Die Hard 4.0 outside North America) is a 2007 American action film, and the fourth installment in the Die Hard film series. The film was directed by Len Wiseman and stars Bruce Willis as John McClane. The film's name was adapted from New Hampshire's state motto, "Live Free or Die".
McClane is attempting to stop cyber terrorists who hack into government and commercial computers across the United States with the goal to start a "fire sale" of financial assets. The film was based on the 1997 article "A Farewell to Arms" written for Wired magazine by John Carlin. The film was released in the United States on June 27, 2007.
The project was initially stalled due to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and when production eventually began, the film's title was changed several times. A variety of visual effects were used for action sequences, even though Wiseman and Willis stated that they wanted to limit the amount of CGI in the film. In separate incidents during filming, both Willis and his stunt double were injured.
Unlike the prior three films in the series, the U.S. rating was PG-13 rather than R. An unrated version contained more strong profanity and violence not shown in the theatrical version, and was included in the DVD release.
Reviews were positive with an 82% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 69/100 score from Metacritic. The film earned total international box office gross receipts of $383.4 million, making it the highest-grossing film in the Die Hard series. It debuted at #2 at the U.S. box office.
For the DVD release, 20th Century Fox pioneered a new kind of DRM, Digital Copy protection that tries to weaken the incentives for consumers to learn how to rip discs by offering them a downloadable version with studio-imposed restrictions. The score for the film was released on July 2, 2007. The fifth film in the series, titled A Good Day to Die Hard, was released on February 14, 2013.
