How Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Red One subtly pays homage to Bruce Willis

Dwayne Johnson‘s heavily mocked new Christmas movie The red one contains several homages to classic holiday films as well as a subtle Easter eggs to Bruce Willis‘s 1988 Die Hard.

The red onewhich is out now in theaters, is about a kidnapped Santa (JK Simmons) whose top employee (Johnson) must team up with a skilled tracker (Chris Evans) to find him and save Christmas.

While it couldn’t be more different in tone from Willis’ action thriller about a New York police officer caught up in a Christmas Eve terrorist attack, The red one manages to recreate a popular scene in the first film of the Die Hard series.

At the end of the film, a montage sees Simmons’ Santa Claus army crawling through air vents to deliver presents to houses. This moment seems to be a reference to one of the Die Hard‘s most memorable scenes, in which Willis’ John McClane is forced to crawl through the openings of Nakotami Plaza to escape Alexander Godunov’s East German terrorist, Karl Vreski.

As he makes his way through the tunnel, John opens a lighter and says the iconic line, “Come out to the shore, have a few laughs.”

The homage likely comes from Johnson and director Jake Kasdan’s love of Die Hard. Kasdan recently called Die Hard a “fantastic” movie that “stands up any time of the year.”

Johnson’s 2018 movie Skyscrapermeanwhile, was also inspired by Willis’ eighties thriller.

“I wanted to make a film that paid tribute and respect to the classic action films that inspired me and entire generations – Die Hard to Towering Inferno to The refugeeJohnson said Cinema Blend then.

The Moana actor also co-starred with Willis in the 2013s GI Joe: Retaliation. During a British press conference for the action sci-fi, Johnson praised Willis, calling him “the ultimate man’s man… Bruce and I have been friends for a long time.”

Willis, 69, has since retired from acting in 2022 after being diagnosed with aphasia – a brain disorder that affects a person’s cognitive abilities. The following year, his family announced that he had been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia FTD.

“We now have a more specific diagnosis: frontotemporal dementia (known as FTD),” his family said in a statement in 2023. “Unfortunately, challenges with communication are only a symptom of the illness Bruce is facing. Although this is painful, it is a relief to finally have a clear diagnosis.”

In October The fabric star Demi Moore, who was married to Willis from 1987 to 2000, said he was in a “stable place” amid his battle with dementia.

“You know, I’ve said it before. The disease is what the disease is. And I think you have to be in really deep acceptance of what it is,” Moore said during a discussion at the 2024 Hamptons International Film Festival. “But where he is, he is stable.”

Moore and Willis share three children: Rumer, 36, Scout, 33, and Tallulah, 30. In 2009 Sixth sense The actor later married Emma Heming Willis, with whom he shares two daughters: Mabel, 12, and Evelyn, 10.