"Has
Bruce Willis Gone Flat?" the headline asked more than 25 years ago.
It
was early 1988. Willis, then 32, was in the midst of what the Hollywood press
considered a career crisis: After bursting on the pop-culture scene via
"Moonlighting" in 1985, the actor had hawked wine coolers (to great
disdain), released a Motown album (to great disdain), and starred in No. 1
movie "Blind Date" (to great disdain).
Things
got worse that spring when "Sunset," a 1920s-set mystery-comedy
costarring James Garner, tanked at the box office. The knives weren't out for
Willis; they were being buried right in his solar plexus.
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And
then he donned a wife-beater, ran over broken glass with his bare feet, and
yelled, "Yippee-ki-yay [you-know-the-rest]."
That
did it. That was it. Bruce Willis was a movie star.
"Die
Hard," about a divorced off-duty cop (Willis) who single-handedly defeats
a dastardly heist, was released in just 21 theaters on July 15, 1988. From the
modest launch, the film went on a blockbuster run, spawning four sequels and
producing a franchise that has grossed nearly $1.5 billion worldwide.
For
action-movie fans of the '80s, "Die Hard," clever, funny, and with a
refreshingly mortal hero, was deliverance from the death grips of Sylvester
Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
For
Willis, the movie was a definitive answer: No, he hadn't gone flat; he was just
getting started. As a tough guy ("Pulp Fiction"). As a hero
("Armageddon"). As an Everyman ("The Sixth Sense"). As a
you-never-know-what-you're-going-to-get star (from the popular "The Whole
Nine Yards" to the little-seen "Breakfast of Champions").
Courtesy: yahoo movies
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