It was inevitable. A sixth Die Hard has officially entered the development stage over at 20th Century Fox. Bruce Willis will be returning for another go-around as heroic New York cop John McClane, an ordinary guy who always finds himself embroiled in extraordinary situations that usually involve a high body count and billions of dollars in property damage.

Len Wiseman, who directed 2007’s Live Free or Die Hard, is in negotiations with the studio to return to the franchise. Lorenzo di Bonaventura will serve as producer.

The project is being developed under the working title Die Hard: Year One. In 2009 and 2010, Boom! Studios published a comic miniseries by the same name which revolved around a young McClane fighting crime during his early days as a cop in NYC circa ’76 (read our review here).

The new Die Hard movie will reportedly function as both prequel and sequel to the classic 1988 original and follow a storyline that will be set in 1979 when, in the words of Deadline’s Mike Fleming Jr., “McClane was a cop in gritty New York City and showing how he became a die hard kind of guy.”

Though another actor will likely play the younger McClane, Willis will still be heavily involved with the plot of Year One.

[Source: Deadline]