Bruce Willis

It’s been a frustrating couple of years for Bruce Willis fans. After a long and very successful career at the very top of the Hollywood Star Machine, Willis’ has slowly worked his way down into B-level fare. And B-level might be generous; a lot of his movies these days get a cursory release and then go straight to VOD, if they show up in theaters at all. Most of these movies have titles so generic they could be attached to any of these films and no one would notice. Was The Prince the one about the dystopian sci-fi with sex robots? Or was that Extraction? Or Precious Cargo? Marauders? Oh wait, it was Vice. According to IMDb, Willis is currently making a movie that really sums up this whole period of his career: The Bombing.

Heists and bad guys and good cops are all the rage for Bruce Willis lately.

A remake of Charles Bronson’s gritty 1974 classic Death Wish has been in the works for several years, though it didn’t seem likely that Paramount and MGM would get this thing off the ground. Enter Bruce Willis and the directing duo behind the Quentin Tarantino-endorsed indie crime thriller Big Bad Wolves, and you’ve got yourself a Death Wish remake.

Over the last 30 years, the terrorists of the world have repeatedly found new ways to torment and intimidate the planet.

Mark-Paul Gosselaar as a villain? Stranger things have happened, but yes, the artist formerly known as Zack Morris is Bruce Willis’ latest foe in his newest action-thriller, which surprisingly isn’t going direct to VOD and Redbox. And yet, the first trailer for Precious Cargo looks like your typical, modern Bruce Willis action flick, aka “Bruce needs a quick paycheck.”

When Len Wiseman first teased Die Hard: Year One, fans immediately assumed that the prequel / sequel story would feature Bruce Willis’ John McClane in a limited capacity — the plot sure made it sound as though Willis would only bookend the film as the modern iteration of the character, while a younger actor would take the majority of screentime as a younger version of McClane. Not so fast, says Wiseman, who promises that Willis will be given much more to do than merely introducing and wrapping up the story.

Before he was cast in Die Hard, Bruce Willis was known primarily as the star of ABC’s TV comedy Moonlighting, so he wasn’t the first person Hollywood thought of to star in their big action movie. In fact, before they offered Willis the role, they actually approached Arnold Schwarzenegger hoping to turn Die Hard into a Commando sequel. This is just one of the Die Hard facts in the latest installment of You Think You Know Movies!

The hardest part of making it in the business of show is getting started. For someone on the outside looking in, getting a foot in the door can be all but impossible without a few well-placed connections. One determined Die Hard fan, independent writer/producer Eric D. Wilkinson, took a decidedly unorthodox back route in his efforts to engineer the planned sixth installment in the popular action franchise. The man had a pitch, and a good one at that, but he had no way of getting an appointment with a hotshot Hollywood executive. So he did what he could, and left the pitch where he could be assured someone would see it.

Great news if you’re a Die Hard fan, disappointing news if you aren’t a fan of the more recent sequels: Die Hard 6 is officially in the works, with Live Free or Die Hard director Len Wiseman returning to take Bruce Willis’ John McClane on another action-packed adventure. But the current plan for the next installment in the franchise is to take it back in time, with Die Hard 6 serving as a prequel of sorts.

A few days ago we learned that Bruce Willis had abruptly exited Woody Allen’s upcoming untitled project, less than 24 hours after photos showed Willis filming a scene on set. Willis’ departure caused a bizarre amount of speculation, with rumors circulating about his commitments to Misery on Broadway, though the most likely reason for Willis leaving was that he just wasn’t right for the part. It seems as though Allen has already found his replacement, and all is right in the Woody Allen universe.