'Die Hart' Trailer: John Travolta Teaches Kevin Hart How To Be An Action Star

Contrary to popular belief, Quibi has not deleted itself from existence out of sheer embarrassment...yet. The young streaming platform is still around, but with apologies to The Most Dangerous Game and every other thing Quibi has produced so far, the service desperately needs a big crossover hit – and Ride Along and Central Intelligence star Kevin Hart just might be its savior.

A new Quibi series called Die Hart stars Hart as a fictionalized version of himself who tires of being the comedic relief and wants to play an action star for once. But when that opportunity finally comes along, it comes with a catch – Hart has to attend action star school, which is overseen by a lunatic played by John Travolta (Face/Off, Pulp Fiction). Check out the first trailer below.

If you watched that and thought, "Huh, that actually doesn't look half bad – especially for a Quibi show," then you might also be wondering exactly why that's the case. No shade on Hart or Travolta (who really looks like he's going all-out here), but I suspect it's largely because of the people involved behind the scenes. Die Hart is co-created by Tripper Clancy, who wrote last year's action comedy Stuber and the Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This, and Derek Kolstad, the guy who originally cooked up the John Wick film franchise. Those two teamed up to come up with the story for each of the ten episodes, while Clancy wrote the screenplays for all of them.

Meanwhile, Eric Appel, who has directed shows like The Office, Workaholics, Happy Endings, New Girl, Silicon Valley, Son of Zorn, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is directing the series.

Personally, I'm curious if Hart views this as a sort of cinematic therapy session where he can work out some actual issues he has with being pigeonholed and frequently playing second-fiddle to (literally) bigger actors, or if this is purely fiction and he doesn't have any genuine interest in being considered for leading man roles in action movies.

Here's the show's official synopsis:

In Die Hart, Kevin Hart plays a fictionalized version of himself who's tired of being the comedic sidekick. He gets his wish when a famous director offers him his dream – to be a leading man action star – but there's a catch: Kevin must first train at the world's greatest action star school, run by a lunatic. Pushed to his limits by this action school coach and a tough-minded rival student (Nathalie Emmanuel) Kevin must survive a series of hilarious, over-the-top action sequences and face his fears if he wants to achieve his dream and land the role of a lifetime.

Die Hart debuts on Quibi on July 20, 2020.