Not that I’m a fan of The Expendable flicks, but this recent news has really caught my attention – including everyone else’s. People love fun Hollywood drama.
So Sylvester Stallone is gearing up for a third Expendables movie. Everyone knows the big gimmick to these are cramming in as many big time action stars as the poster will hold. That’s the big draw. Fans are always anxious to see what new faces Sly has lined up for the latest entry.
Bruce Willis has been in both one and two and it seemed like a natural he was going do number three. Now word has gotten out that Willis declined the offer of $3 million for four days work on the movie. The price for his services for that length of time is apparently four million bucks. Stallone and/or whoever is in charge of the production refused to meet that salary demand. so Willis walked.
A few days after the Willis walkout Sly tweeted – “WILLIS OUT…HARRISON FORD IN !!! GREAT NEWS!!!!! Been waiting years for this!!!!”
He then added this parting shot aimed at Willis – “GREEDY AND LAZY……A SURE FORMULA FOR CAREER FAILURE”.
I guess these two aren’t buddies anymore.
This incident doesn’t do any favors for Willis’ reputation. Lately he’s been getting some pretty bad press. A recent interview for Red 2 has been trending on youtube with viewers disgusted by his arrogant attitude.
Granted the questions asked by the interviewer are pretty stupid too, but Willis isn’t even pretending to care. His comment about “being nice” to people is awfully ironic in it.
By the way I love how in that clip they use that very cheesy, upbeat radio station ID to open and close the interview. It’s just such a contrast to the awkwardness of this sitdown with Willis and Mary Louise Parker. I find that part hysterical.
Kevin Smith is constantly dishing juicy stories about the nightmare of working with him. And of course let’s not forget the abysmal A Good Day To Die Hard. What a cruel joke that was to fans. Nope, I’m not anywhere close to forgiving him for that.
This Expendables 3 melodrama kind of reminds me of a warped version of all those stories back in ’88 where everyone was shocked that Willis, then only known mainly as a TV actor, was being paid five million bucks to star in this action film with the odd title – Die Hard. People couldn’t get over he was getting paid so much loot for that one movie. Man how times have changed.
Afterwards audiences changed their minds and thought he earned it on that movie and it was not such an unreasonable payday. Does anyone think his appearance in an Expendables movie warrants four million bucks? Or even three???
I don’t know what’s going on here. If all this is true Willis is coming off as a greedy shallow movie star. I still find it hard to believe that they were willing to pay him three million bucks for another extended cameo in one of these movies. It’s not like he does much in them. He says a few lines, shoots a gun here and there then calls it a day.
Plus, Willis and Stallone have known each other since the days of their Planet Hollywood partnership. So I would assume they’re friendly with each other – or at the very least politely cordial. Why not just do the movie for my old pal, help him out, it should be fun to hang around the guys for a few days and then give my salary to charity. What the heck it’s only four days worth of work!
Then there’s Stallone who now took to Twitter and started the name calling game and is not hiding that money was an issue with Willis. I’m not sure that was a great way to go about this. I would have just not addressed it or simply said he was sorry that he and Willis couldn’t agree to terms or whatever and he’ll be missed in the third movie. You know, take the higher road.
I love how I’m talking about this like I can relate to the amounts of money that’s coming between these two. Like I’ve encountered this problem before. Oh sure what’s a million bucks between friends! I still have a grudge against my one friend who still owes me twenty bucks!
On the upside Expendables fans can welcome Ford into the fold. I’m sure that will delight fans to see him do a little old school action stuff for a few minutes. I personally don’t expect the film to ultimately be any better or worse if Willis or Ford were in it or not in it. I think it will be the same quality as the previous two either way.
The novelty for most action fans is to see some old time action stars do their stuff for a few scenes. For me the idea is great, but the execution is sorely lacking with these movies.
For as many ‘action stars’ Stallone recruits for each installment, if the movie ends up being a lousy movie overall it makes little difference to me what big name action stars are sharing the screen with each other or popping up here and there.
Yeah it’s cool to see them for a minute or two, but then when the thrill of those casting coups wear themselves out I need something else besides them to hold my attention. A chorus line of stars doesn’t make up for a lame movie no matter how big of stars they are. For all the big name actors in these flicks the movies should be much more entertaining.
Let’s put it this way, if The Expendable movies were just Sly starring with a bunch of no-name extras, would they be as popular as they’ve become with audiences? Probably not.
It should be fun to see when the movie comes out all the questions Sly will get about the Willis fiasco. Hey, he’s already begun to start dishing about it on Twitter, so he better be willing to answer all those questions in the interviews when he’s promoting Expendables 3.
I am a fan of the Expendables films and will defend them all the way; I am even looking forward to the third one with the cast additions. But MAAAAAAN is Willis being a jerk. Refusal to do a film over a million dollars when you will only work 4 DAYS!! This and that interview is making it hard fro me to respect.
Speaking of which (since you mentioned it to); I know a lot of actors hate promoting films and I understand that, they are actors not salespeople. But, to openly say that your bored with an interview and look half-asleep the entire time is just disrespectful to that person. I even feel bad for Mary Louise-Parker who is deperately trying to salvage something out of that.
Alexander I completely agree. I'll admit the interviewer is asking such extremely lame questions and who knows how many hours Willis and Parker were sitting there doing these assembly line interviews answering the same ridiculous questions with these vapid ass-kissing interviewers when they got to him. Plus, it looks like the guy gave them those fake mics with the stations logo to speak into and hold up for the camera. Already it's awkward and artificial.
But Willis might as well make the most of it. As he said he's trying to "sell" the movie. He's certainly not doing a very good job enticing me to plunk down my money to see this product in which he's the star of. It looks like Mary is trying to keep things lively and be engaging, but Willis doesn't seem like he could care less about talking with this guy or is even trying to pretend to be.
BTW the station jingle that comes up at the end of this uncomfortable interview kills me everytime! lol
Oh and I'm not kidding myself I'll probably end up watching the Expendables 3 at some point. I'll admit I'm curious to see all these actors starring in a movie together, but I just don't have high expectations for the final product.
So how much did Harrison sign on for? The $3 mil that Willis refused? Is Harrison's role more involved than Willis' would have been?
I was curious about that too. I haven't read anything about what they're going to pay Ford or if he's going to work for those four days or more or less. Maybe that info will come out eventually. I imagine he'd have about the same amount of screentime as Willis would have though. Unless he only agrees to doing one of those walk-on's like Chuck Norris did, he appears for a few minutes and just leaves.
Two things.
First, Why is Harrison Ford in a Expendables film? When I think Harrison Ford, I don't think about shoot'em up action adventure films. It really isn't his style. His type of adventure film is space, adventure and thriller films. If Stallone is Cheese and Crackers, then Ford is caviar. So is Stallone going for a more dramatic tone?
Second, Stallone shouldn't be ignored throughout this. He loves to attempt to destroy careers. When Schwarzenegger started to encroaching on his territory, Stallone commissioned a biographer to write a not-so-flattering portrait of Arnold. And when Arnold sued, Stallone paid for the legal fees. All the while, they were building up Planet Hollywood.
Now he has Willis in his sights.
You hear that Hollywood is a cutthroat industry. But nothing drives that home more as when you hear the stories.
I never thought of Ford as being one of those 'action stars'. Yes like you said he's done action movies, but I never categorized Indy or The Fugitive, Air Force One, his Jack Ryan flicks as the same type of 'action movie' that all these other guys were doing.
Lately it seems Ford has been much more willing to do these smaller roles in movies where he's not necessarily the lead. 42, Paranoia, I think I read he's making a cameo in Anchorman 2.
This Willis debacle seems like it helped Stallone out by scoring Ford. His attachment to it now in my mind upgraded the movie and just made it a bit more classier. Meanwhile, I think it's almost like Ford is 'slumming it' by agreeing to show up in it. lol
I agree that this would be slumming for Ford. I really don't care to see Indiana Jones running around throwing grenades and shooting more machine guns than Pierce Brosnan in any five minutes of one of his Bond films.
Then again, I didn't want to see a CGI-dominated, lousy-story fourth Indiana Jones film either, so it's clear nobody is listening to me.
I am a big of fan of bruce willis movies and I have seen his almost all movies. I love his actions movies and his acting is just mind blowing. I never have seen any other actor better than from his acting.