The movie Bruce Willis regretted making: “Ruined by the producers”
Looking back at Bruce Willis’ filmography, you have to say he smashed it. As well as his appearances in classic action series – ‘Die Hard’, ‘RED’, ‘The Expendables’ – he’s starred in plenty of other movies that have made a big splash. The Sixth Sense was a surprise hit in 1999, highly regarded as one of the best years for movies ever, and he’s also leant his recognisable visage to the likes of Pulp Fiction, Moonrise Kingdom, Sin City, and more.
It hasn’t always been smooth sailing for the smooth-headed icon, though. Take 2007’s Perfect Stranger, for example. A psychological thriller also starring Halle Berry, the movie barely returned its budget at the box office and was touted by critics as one of the worst films of the year. Lots of things contribute to a movie being bad, but according to the man himself, there was one entity responsible for this ungodly flop.
Speaking to Ain’t It Cool News, Willis laid into the movie, particularly those working behind the scenes. “Perfect Stranger was ruined by the producers,” he said (via Irish Examiner). The three people listed as ‘producers’ on the film are Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Daniel A. Thomas, and Stephanie Langhoff, the latter of whom would go on to produce the HBO series Togetherness. However, he might have been referring to the production companies as a whole, which were Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios, or even Sony Pictures Releasing, the distributor. “Oddly enough, that film was meant to be a hard R rating, but when all the things that were meant to be in it were cut, except for the ‘fucks’, they got a PG-13 rating,” he revealed. “Weird right?”
Willis plays Harrison Hill, an advertising executive who allegedly murders a woman with whom he is having an affair. Rowena Price – a character Berry called ‘the most challenging role of her career’ – is a journalist who learns of the murder and seeks to prove Hill’s guilt, leading to her posing as somebody else online in an attempt to wean the information out of him. Needless to say, things quickly get out of hand.
According to a sample size of reviews, Willis’ suggestion that Perfect Stranger could have been saved by a more mature rating seems a little optimistic. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus calls the film ‘too convoluted to work’ and labels it a ‘techno-thriller without the thrills’. The twist ending also came under fire and, even though the web was only in its infancy at the time, it was still deemed cliched and pandering.
This wasn’t the only Willis joint that was seemingly spoiled by outside interference. Live Free or Die Hard – known as Die Hard 4.0 outside of the US – was slapped with a PG-13 rating, which many felt curtailed the impact it had on audiences. Willis isn’t completely free from blame, though. Whilst attempting to make the Disney-backed romcom Broadway Brawler, the star was apparently so self-obsessed that he was impossible to work with. The film ended up collapsing under the weight of Willis’ ego and remains unfinished.
We’ll never know for sure how Perfect Stranger would have turned out if it had been given a higher age rating, but Willis seemed pretty certain that it would have made it at least a little bit better. At the very least, it couldn’t have made things much worse.
