Die Hard sequel coming - or is it a prequel?

Bruce Willis is returning as John McClane in another Die Hard film.

Bruce Willis is working with director Len Wiseman on a Die Hard sequel - which may be a prequel.

The action man and the movie-maker teamed up for 2007's Live Free or Die Hard, and now Wiseman says Willis is helping him perfect his iconic character John McClane's back story for a new Die Hard film.

"After doing the fourth one [movie], there were so many conversations that Bruce and I were having about what he put into the character for Die Hard 1," Wiseman tells Collider.com.

"That character comes in with so much baggage, emotionally, and experience. He's already divorced, he's bitter, his Captain hates him, and doesn't want him back. So, what created that guy?"

"We've never seen the actual love story (between McClane and his wife Holly). We know its demise, but we've never seen what it was like when he met Holly, or when he was a beat cop in '78 in New York, when there was no chance of him making detective.

"It's always been something I've been thinking about, and now we're doing it. And it ties in."

Wiseman insists the actor will be a big part of his new film.

"I wasn't going to do it without Bruce. I'm also not going to do it with Bruce being a cameo bookend gimmick," he says.

"It's really working into the plot, with the '70s having ramifications on present-day Bruce.

"It intercuts in a very fun, imaginative way with present-day John McClane... The film itself will take place on New Year's Eve 1979, so trying to gear things towards that would be fun."

The news comes just days after Alan Rickman's death. The beloved Brit played villain Hans Gruber in the first Die Hard movie.

- WENN