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Tag Archive: Bruce Willis


How about a Chaykin or Thorp-inspired story? Look for a young John McClane in Die Hard: Year One movie

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August 3, 2018

Another “prequel that is also a sequel” is in the works, and this time it’s for one of the action genre’s biggest franchises.  Director Len Wiseman confirmed at a Television Critics Association event that casting for both a young John McClane and young Holly Gennero will be part of a new film: Die Hard: Year One.  Wiseman is waiting for a final script from writers Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes.  He said that story will feature both a flashback element and a future story.  The past will focus on McClane in the 1970s.  And Wiseman said he and Bruce Willis want to be part of the process to select the actor who portrays the young McClane.

Back in 2015 when the idea for this movie first surfaced, one logical casting idea was floated:  Why not Joseph Gordon-Levitt?  Gordon-Levitt played a young McClane character in Looper, and he also has the acting chops to come back for more for such an iconic character.  No one else seems that obvious, yet Nicholas Hoult might be a good choice considering his age and significant (and critically acclaimed)action performances in the X-Men series and Mad Max: Fury Road.  Another choice that would be difficult not to rule out is Jai Courtney, who played McClane’s son in 2013’s A Good Day to Die Hard.

It also seems obvious that the script writers should look to the two pieces of source material that have already been written.  First would be the novel that inspired the film series, Roderick Thorp’s Nothing Lasts Forever (reviewed here at borg.com), the sequel to the 1966 novel The Detective, which was turned into a movie starring Frank Sinatra.  If you’re looking to get into the shoes of McClane, this would be the place to begin.  But next would be renowned writer Howard Chaykin’s own take on the same title, his comic book series Die Hard: Year One published by BOOM! Comics in 2010 (reviewed here at borg.com).  It doesn’t appear the new script writers are looking to these two books for ideas, but note the covers above to the Chaykin series have a great vibe fans would no doubt love to see on the big screen.

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SDCC 2018–Exciting trailer arrives for Glass, the third film of Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
July 21, 2018

Universal dropped a short teaser for it earlier this week, and for Friday of San Diego Comic-Con week we at last get to see a full trailer for the third film in M. Night Shyamalan’s superhero trilogy, Glass.  They’re all being brought together in today’s trailer by the writer/director of The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village, The Happening, Wayward Pines, and Lady in the Water–Samuel L. Jackson returning as Elijah aka Mr. Glass, the seemingly fragile, self-aware comic book villain of the title, Bruce Willis as the unbreakable hooded vigilante David Dunn, and James McAvoy as Patricia/Dennis/Hedwig/Barry/Jade/Orwell/Heinrich/Norma or just The Beast.

Shyamalan’s psychological horror-thriller Split was a real genre buster–one of those odd movies that really didn’t seem to fit into the genre you thought you were getting from the previews, like Midnight Special.  But we’d learn only at the end we were inside not only the mind of a sociopath, but the mind of a particularly twisted supervillain from the darkest edge of comic book land.  How many more theater seats would have been filled if moviegoers had known Split was the sequel to Shyamalan’s cult-favorite superhero movie Unbreakable?

Glass is arriving just on the heels of last year’s Split.  Unbreakable arrived in theaters way back in 2000.  It all is coming together a bit like J.J. Abrams disjointed, multi-genre Cloverfield movie series.  Take a look at the first trailer from Universal for Glass:

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First look–Bruce Willis goes Bronson in remake of Death Wish

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August 4, 2017

It’s Bruce Willis in a sequel to M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable?  Nope.

Bruce Willis took over for Denzel Washington in the sequel to The Equalizer?  Nope.

But the remake of 1974’s Death Wish is another vigilante action thriller just the same.  Willis is back in his Unbreakable hooded sweatshirt and he’s adding another entry into the long list of films in the modern vigilante sub-genre.  We all must like the good guys getting rid of the undisputed bad guys, one way or the other, because Hollywood keeps giving us more vigilante movies.  Just look back to this abbreviated list of predecessor films:  Dirty Harry (1971) (and all the sequels), Billy Jack (1971), Walking Tall (1973), Coffy (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Mad Max (1979) (and its sequels), The Star Chamber (1983), Batman (1989) (and all its superhero emulators and incarnations before and since), Out for Justice (1991), Falling Down (1993), Nowhere to Run (1993), The Crow (1994), Timecop (1994), Kill Bill (2003), A Man Apart (2003), Walking Tall (2004), Man on Fire (2004), Sin City (2005), V for Vendetta (2005), Munich (2005), Shooter (2007), Taken (2008), Kick-Ass (2010), Machete (2010), The Equalizer (2014), and Deadpool (2016).

Charles Bronson (The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, The Twilight Zone, The Magnificent Seven, Never So Few, House of Wax, Pat and Mike) was 53 years old when he made the first Death Wish, and 72 by the time he made the fifth and final film in the Death Wish series.  Bruce Willis is 62, so we’re in the right neighborhood for re-casting the role of a husband and father out for payback after his wife is murdered and daughter assaulted.  Willis’s character’s ill-fated wife is played by Elizabeth Shue, seen most recently on TV’s CSI, but most memorable from Karate Kid, Cocktail, Back to the Future II and III, and Leaving Las Vegas, where she earned an Oscar nomination.  The film co-stars Vincent D’Onofrio (The Magnificent Seven, Daredevil, Men in Black).

Check out this first trailer for Bruce Willis in the remake of Death Wish:

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The Fifth Element to commemorate 20th anniversary back on the big screen

Filed under: Fantasy Realms, Movies, Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
April 10, 2017

When we ran down our list of some of the biggest anniversaries happening in 2017 this New Year’s Day here at borg.com, we mentioned that Valerian, the lead character in director Luc Besson’s new sci-fi extravaganza Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, turns 50 this year.  Also celebrating this year is Besson’s most famous work, 1997’s visual spectacle The Fifth Element.  To celebrate the film’s 20th anniversary, Fathom Events is partnering with Sony Pictures next month to bring the film back to theaters for two days only.

The Fifth Element represents the best science fiction has to offer.  The look at Bruce Willis’s hero Korben Dallas living the life of an “every man” in a future New York City was groundbreaking.  At the end of one career Dallas finds himself driving a cab, getting hounded by his mother on the phone, talking to his cat, and ordering Chinese food–normal things from this century, yet with Dallas we see a future efficiency apartment jammed with every day necessities and every day wonders.  The Fifth Element also blends in fantastical elements–a fantastic journey with humor, action, and stunning visuals connecting ancient history and the future of not only humans, but a federation of aliens from other worlds, too.

The set decoration, cinematography, make-ups, costumes, and props were groundbreaking.  When we grew up thinking about the ideal year 2000, the bustling space travel and flying cars in The Fifth Element are exactly what we were hoping for.  Compare The Fifth Element with any other film with a vision of our future and the competitors will be difficult to measure up.  Only Doctor Who and Star Trek really compare, also mixing elements of sci-fi and fantasy with aliens and other worlds, and the most creative, visionary, artistic components–yet which single two-hour segment has all the elements boiled down into two epic hours?

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First look–Bruce Willis’s next action movie gig

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June 6, 2016

marauders willis 2016 poster

One thing Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger have always had in common is that (except when Arnold was out being the Governator), both men were working actors.  They never seem to pick and choose the “right” movie for their careers, but instead seem from an audience standpoint to take every new role coming down the pike, resulting in inconsistency in audiences’ ability to count on getting a good movie for their dollar every time.  Lately you could add a more recent action star to this–Jason Statham.  In contrast, action stars like Tom Cruise and Sylvester Stallone seem more consistent, Cruise banking top performing movies with interesting and varying parts, and Stallone tending to pick to stuck in a rut with more than his share of duds.

For every Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, Twelve Monkeys, The Fifth Element, The Sixth Sense, RED, and Looper, there’s a The Last Boy Scout, The Color of Night, Death Becomes Her, and A Good Day to Die Hard.  For every Terminator, Predator, Total Recall, True Lies, and Twins, there’s a Last Action Hero, Junior, Jingle All the Way, and Batman & Robin.

Not that every “B” movie these guys churn out isn’t worth your time.  Just take a look at Striking Distance, The Jackal, The Kid, or Mercury Rising, or Eraser, The Last Stand, and Maggie.

Bruce Willis Marauders

Bruce Willis’s next release is Marauders, a heist movie with an interesting-garbed masked robber, co-starring TV’s Christopher Meloni and SPECTRE and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Dave Bautista (here Bautista isn’t hidden by make-up and gets to deliver more than one line!).  Where will this fall in Willis’s catalog of films?

Check out this trailer for the Bruce Willis heist movie, Marauders:

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You could be a costume designer for the next Luc Besson sci-fi movie

Filed under: Comics & Books, Movies, Sci-Fi Café — Leave a comment
October 9, 2015

Chris Tucker Fifth Element

What would you wear to a dinner party at the edge of the galaxy in the 28th century?

Now everyone has a chance to answer that question, as a costume designer for a major science fiction movie release.  Director Luc Besson, best known for his outlandish style in the 1997 Bruce Willis/Milla Jovovich sci-fi classic The Fifth Element, is looking for a few good outfits to feature in a dinner party scene in a city of millions and a myriad of humanoid alien races.  Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is scheduled for release in 2017, now in pre-production.

Besson, who also directed La Femme Nikita, The Professional, and Lucy, made a long-lasting statement in sci-fi fashion with his characters from The Fifth Element.  From Milla Jovovich’s body-taped Leeloo, to Bruce Willis’s understated everyman Korben Dallas, to the over-the-top Chris Tucker’s Ruby Rhod, from the striking opera singer Diva Plavalaguna (Maïwenn), to Gary Oldman’s creepy and villainous Zorg, the movie was a visual spectacle.

Diva Plavalaguna

How do you enter the contest?

All you need to know is in this video presentation with Luc Besson:

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Now streaming—Stallone leads a huge, fun, all-star cast in The Expendables 3

Filed under: Movies, Retro Fix, Superheroes — Leave a comment
May 15, 2015

Expendables team

Review by C.J. Bunce

What you want to see in a giant ensemble movie is probably different than what you’d expect to see in any other movie.  Above all, you’re probably after sheer entertainment—whatever that means to you—and you’d likely judge the movie using a different standard than what you’d expect to see in the next Academy Award nominee for Best Picture.  These ensemble movies are plentiful enough today that they deserve their own sub-genre in the “Action” tab on streaming Netflix or Amazon Prime (what used to be the “Action” aisle in Blockbuster or Movies To Go).

We’re talking about those movies that crammed in every star that could be found, showcases where studios would show off their current talent, but always big in scope and always a box office draw.  A comedy like It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World!, disaster movies like Airport ’76, Earthquake, and The Towering Inferno, epic Western films like The Magnificent Seven and How the West Was Won, and biblical efforts like The Greatest Story Ever Told.  Each offered some of the best stars of the day, sometimes full of current stars, sometimes full of has-been stars.

Expendables Ford and Stallone

The Avengers franchise seems to have turned around the ensemble film with its many lead actors in leading roles, or at least reinvented the sub-genre, but they still don’t have the sheer volume as past ensemble cast films.  The Avengers suffers like many past efforts—with so many actors, how can you please every movie watcher with so little time to devote to each actor?  Ultimately it’s all about finding a good balance.  None of these films ever get a nod for filmmaking perfection, and many would hardly even rate a 5 on a 10 star scale, but that doesn’t mean they don’t often result in good, old fashioned entertainment.  Which brings us to The Expendables 3.

Remember the joke about Rambo, The Terminator, The Transporter, Zorro, Jack Ryan, and Mad Max walking into a bar?  Probably not.  It would probably not be that funny.  But it would be fun to see.  It’s that visual that is enough to make The Expendables 3 work.

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First look–12 Monkeys, the new Syfy Channel TV series

Filed under: Retro Fix, Sci-Fi Café, TV — Leave a comment
July 21, 2014

12 Monkeys Syfy

Terry Gilliam’s 1995 sci-fi thriller 12 Monkeys is every bit a genre classic.  Starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt–each in one of their best film performances–Willis plays James Cole, a time traveler from the future, Stowe plays Kathryn Railly, a psychologist in the past, and Pitt, in a supporting actor Oscar-nominated performance, as a mental patient who masterminds a terrorist group called the Army of the 12 Monkeys, and is the son of the wealthy Dr. Goines, played by Christopher Plummer.  So how about 12 Monkeys as a television series?

How would you approach it?  Use the same world but send another group of people back to try to “prevent the future” by trying again to pinpoint the source of a virus that will destroy everyone?  Or would you use the same characters?

Aaron Stanford star of 12 Monkeys

In the January 2015 TV series 12 Monkeys, James Cole will return, played this time by Aaron Stanford, who played X-Men mutant Pyro in the Marvel Comics movie series.  And this time Cassandra Railly (not Kathryn), played by Amanda Schull (Suits, Psych, Grimm) sends Cole back in time (is this Kathryn’s daughter?  Coles’ daughter?) to meet with… Cassandra, to try to change the future.  Character actor and guest actor of every other series on TV, Zeljko Ivanek (White Collar, Argo, House, M.D., Live Free or Die Hard, Lost, Bones, Homicide, Donnie Brasco, The X-Files, and Tex) will play a lead role as Leland, who is key to changing the future.  Kirk Acevedo (Grimm, Fringe, Walking Dead, Rise.. and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) plays a friend of Cole.

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First look–Rodriquez and Miller direct Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

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April 27, 2014

Eva Green Sin City Dame to Kill For

After the original Sin City, the 2005 film adaptation of Frank Miller’s 1993 graphic novel from Dark Horse Comics brought to the screen by co-directors Robert Rodriquez and Frank Miller, it might take a lot to get audiences back in the theaters for a sequel.  But Miller has a big comic book fan base, and Rodriquez several fans of his slightly askew action flicks, so it’s not that big of surprise a studio is taking another run at the Sin City universe.

Lions Gate has now released its trailer for Sin City:  A Dame to Kill For.  If the preview won’t get you into the theater, the great cast list might be enough to add this one to a future Netflix queue.  Jessica Alba, Bruce Willis, Mickey Rourke, Rosario Dawson, Jamie King, and Powers Booth all are returning from the original film, and adding Jeremy Piven, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Josh Brolin, Christopher Meloni, Eva Green, and Ray Liotta (with rumors of Lady Gaga and Christopher Lloyd making appearances).

Sin City Dame to Kill For

As with the original movie, the sequel certainly has its own comic book noir style, although it certainly borrows a lot from Dick Tracy–plenty of “dames” in seedy places, car chases, ugly and gruff villains, and just as ugly and gruff good guys (or at least they are almost good guys).  As with Alan Moore, his books and film adaptations, Miller’s work tends to be just as polarizing.  You love it or you hate it.

Here is the trailer for Sin City: A Dame to Kill For:

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Teaser for The Expendables 3 confirms another line-up of big action stars of the past

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January 24, 2014

The Expendables 3

The all-star cast ensemble movie is alive and well (well maybe not “well”) thanks to The Expendables franchise.  It’s a forum for action film stars of the past to tell everyone they think they still have what it takes, whether they really do or not.  You can whistle along to the Colonel Bogey March as you check out the teaser for the third installment due out this summer, The Expendables 3.  We included it as one of our entries on our 2014 “movies to watch” list, with Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Jet Li, and Dolph Lundgren back, along with Antonio Banderas, Wesley Snipes, and Kelsey Grammer–and Mel Gibson as the show’s villain.  Wait a second… once of these guys doesn’t fit the action hero mold so much. Then there is The Expendables newbie Harrison Ford. What? Is Ford taking every gig that comes along these days?

Along with plenty of extra-long action sequences you can usually find a few fun scenes between these personalities in these films.

With Bruce Willis, Jean-Claude van Damme, Mickey Rourke, and Chuck Norris in the prior outings, we’re still left wondering one question: Where the heck is Steven Seagal?

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