Stranger than fiction
The True Story documentary series tells the real inspiration behind some of Hollywood’s greatest films. Naturally, I was pleased to be Assistant Producer for one of the programmes. However, I had some trepidation at first when I discovered it would be telling the true story behind Die Hard 4.0 (known as Live Free or Die Hard in the USA). What could possibly be realistic about terrorists bringing down the US infrastructure with their own virtual ‘fire sale’ as depicted in the last ‘yippee-kay-yaying’ Die Hard franchise, I wondered.
As it turned out, many of the hacking attacks depicted in the film have not only been tried but were successfully carried out long before the film was made. As journalist Erik Radvon, who wrote Hackertown about one hack-tastic corner of the USA, said: “This is one of those instances where real life events are arguably more outrageous than the Hollywood version.”
Already aired on Discovery, the series is to also broadcast on Channel 5, Smithsonian and BBC Worldwide later in the year. Other films featured in the series are Da Vinci Code, Platoon, Scream and Star Trek.
