Alan Rickman's Die Hard and Harry Potter Scripts and Personal Books to Auction
Alan Rickman's Die Hard script
While it probably will not help solve the question 'Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?', Alan Rickman's personal copy of the shooting script will definitely go under the hammer at Propstore's Entertainment Memorabilia auction tomorrow.
Rickman's heavily annotated script of John McTiernan's 1988 blockbuster in which he played villain Hans Gruber in his movie debut. Dated "October 2, 1987", this Second Revised Draft is 112 pages long and Rickman has signed the front cover.
The popular actor extensively annotated the script throughout, highlighting his dialogue and making changes. He also wrote a scene-by-scene script breakdown on the inside-front cover, crossing out the scenes as they were completed. Among loose pieces of paper held within the script ae a call sheet, a memo with updated dialogue for the scene with Mr Takagi (played by James Shigeta) in which Gruber invents the faux Plutarch quote: "And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept. For there were no more worlds to conquer", and three pages with dialogue alterations handwritten by Rickman.
The lot also includes 14 loose revised script pages, two of which feature Rickman's handwriting, and Rickman's invitation and ticket to the Gala Preview of Die Hard at the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square. It all comes in a plastic box labelled 'DIE HARD' in Rickman's flowing handwriting. It has an estimate of £30,000-£60,000.
The sale includes a wide range of other items from Rickman's personal archive including his film scripts for Sense and Sensibility, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Truly, Madly, Deeply, and the Harry Potter movie sequence.
In addition, Rickman's personal copies of all seven of the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling are also being offered with an estimate of £1,000-£2,000. They are all well read. This lot also includes a limited edition of Sotheby's catalogue signed by Rickman for its 2007 sale of a handwritten and hand-illustrated copy of Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
