The main plot finds McClane traveling to Russia to get his estranged son, Jack, an undercover CIA agent, out of prison.

Jack's father, NYPD detective John McClane, who has not been in touch with his son for several years, learns he is in trouble and flies to Russia.

The group are ambushed by Chagarin's men; Collins is shot and killed while the McClanes and Komarov escape, making their way to a hotel to get the safe deposit box key containing the file.

That night, Jack and John steal a car full of weapons, driving to Pripyat, Ukraine, where the safe deposit box with the file is located, only to find that Komarov, Irina, and Alik are already there.

The safe deposit box with the supposed file is a secret passage to a Chernobyl-era vault containing €1 billion worth of weapons-grade uranium.

It turns out that there is no secret file and Komorov and Irina have concocted a scheme to steal the uranium deposit to make big money in the black market.

Production was formally announced in 2010, with X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The A-Team writer Skip Woods confirmed as the film's screenwriter.

[5] The media speculated that the film would be a crossover between the Die Hard and 24 series, with Kiefer Sutherland to reprise his role as Jack Bauer alongside John McClane.

[11] Sebastian Koch played the film's primary antagonist, Yuri Komarov,[12] while Yulia Snigir and Cole Hauser featured as secondary characters Irina and Collins.

[12][13] The cast was completed by actors Amaury Nolasco as a friend of McClane,[14] Pasha D. Lychnikoff as a taxi driver,[14] and Megalyn Echikunwoke, Anne Vyalitsyna, and Ivan Kamaras in smaller roles.

[22] A specially censored version was prepared for theatrical release in the United Kingdom, which was cut for language and violence in order to attain a 12A at the request of the distributors.

[25] Bruce Willis returned as John McClane, and had expressed a desire to shoot an additional installment in the series following A Good Day To Die Hard before retiring the character.

In North America, A Good Day to Die Hard grossed an estimated $840,000 from its night showings at 2,328 locations on Wednesday, February 13, 2013.

The site's critical consensus reads, "A Good Day to Die Hard is the weakest entry in a storied franchise, and not even Bruce Willis's smirking demeanor can enliven a clichéd, uninspired script.

Though complimenting the special effects, he criticizes the direction of John Moore, the lack of style, and writes that "everything that made the first Die Hard memorable—the nuances of character, the political subtext, the cowboy wit—has been dumbed down or scrubbed away entirely.

[43] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film a 2/5 and remarked that it lacked "inspiration", and that the onscreen rivalry of Willis and Courtney was "more irritant than enticement.

"[45] Among the rare positive reviews, Robbie Collin for The Daily Telegraph remarked that "Yet even though the ride finally stalls, A Good Day To Die Hard has been thrustingly outrageous enough in its earlier moments to coast to the finish line on momentum.

"[46] Daniel M. Kimmel, writing for the New England Movies Weekly, found the film to be better than Live Free or Die Hard and states that the car chase scene "is well worth the price of admission."

"[47] Rick Groen of The Globe and Mail criticized the action scenes as being "messy", but concluded his review saying that the film "continues the franchise without undue embarrassment.

"[48] Peter Howell of The Toronto Star remarked that Willis and Courtney made a strong estranged family duo and that the film had a nice drinking game routine going for it with how many times McClane exclaims "I'm on vacation!"

[49] At the 40th People's Choice Awards, A Good Day to Die Hard received a nomination for Favorite Thriller Movie.

[64] In February 2019, the production team made a revision to the writing, insinuating that the project, though supposedly moving forward, is on the studio's backburner, as evinced by executives not even having read the script yet.

[65] Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead said that she would be interested in returning as Lucy Gennero-McClane in a future installment, but later intimated doubt that the film would ever get made[66][67] due to scheduling conflicts.

[68] Die Hard was removed from the Fox imprint through at least its 2021 slate, after Disney's acquisition and senior management shake-up, which saw the dismissal of its theatrical distribution executive, Chris Aronson.