Nothing Lasts Forever was originally written as a sequel to The Detective so it could be made into a follow-up film starring Frank Sinatra as Joe Leland. But when Frank Sinatra declined the role, it was then changed into a sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Commando, but when Schwarzenegger turned down the role, the script was retooled in 1988 for the standalone story, Die Hard, which would later become one of the most famous and beloved action films of all time.

The film follows its source material closely. Some of its memorable scenes, characters, and dialogue are taken directly from the novel. The story was altered to be a stand-alone film with no connections to Thorp’s novel The Detective. Other changes included the older hero of the novel becoming younger, his name changed from Joe Leland to John McClane, his daughter becoming his wife (maiden name “Gennero,” different from the book’s spelling of “Gennaro”), and the American Klaxon Oil Corporation becoming the Japanese Nakatomi Corporation. The “terrorists” are actually capitalist yuppies that are after $640 million in negotiable bearer bonds the building’s vault and are posing as terrorists to draw attention away from the robbery. In the film, they are also not only German, but of varying ethnicities, although most remain European. The tone of the novel is far darker with underlying themes of guilt, alcoholism and the complexity of the disturbed human mind. The novel also features female terrorists. The ending of the story is also different from the big screen adaptation in the sense that it ends much less positively than the happy ending portrayed in the movie, hinting that Joe could possibly succumb to his wounds and die.