New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

I fell asleep just thinking about this movie.

Kim Hollis: The Cold Light of Day finished outside the top 10 with $1.8 million. This is the worst opening weekend performance of Bruce Willis's career. Say something funny about The Cold Light of Day. Also, in your estimation, what's the worst Bruce Willis movie?

Matthew Huntley: Did anyone even know this movie was opening? I tend to go to the movies at least once a week and while I have seen a poster for it in the lobby, I haven't seen one trailer. Given its performance, the movie should have been called, Will Never See the Light of Day.

Worst Bruce Will movie? That's a no-brainer for me: The Whole Ten Yards. I shuddered even as I wrote that.

Jason Barney: I am a huge Bruce Willis fan and I didn't even know this film was being released until last weekend. The only positive for this opening is the take from overseas. With $13 million from Europe already, it is surprising that the North American opening was so non-existent. This is Bruce Willis, and his name being associated with a film should at least mean something. Opening outside of the top 10 is about as low as it can get. This is the worst weekend of the year, and it wasn't a factor at the box office. There is no other way to describe this but sad.

I think Hart's War was an awful film.

Shalimar Sahota: I remember seeing ads for this with Henry Cavill running around and jumping from rooftops, but not really knowing why. I was not remotely interested in finding out why either. I imagine a little more marketing could have made people "aware", but the slightly low screen count also shows that Summit rightfully didn't really have enough faith here. I know that there are a handful of bad Bruce Willis movies. Thankfully I haven't sat through many of them. Does Ocean's Twelve count?

Brett Beach: From my understanding, this was supposed to have a very minimal limited engagement up until last weekend when they ratcheted it up to 1,500 screens (perhaps Willis has a no dumping clause in his contract)? Hopefully Mabrouk El Mechri (who helmed JCVD a few years back, a must see for a great Van Damme performance), fares better next time out.

As for worst, the first time I remember being deeply disappointed in a Willis film was 1996's Last Man Standing. I had enjoyed Hudson Hawk, Striking Distance, even Bonfire of the Vanities at that point, but have never seen North, and don't think I ever will. Among his latter day films, Perfect Stranger, w/Halle Berry, wanted to be bad/good, but wound up so WTF by the end, it couldn't be enjoyed even on those terms.

Max Braden: Hey, at least that's $1.8 million more than Set Up and Catch .44, two movies of his from last year that never saw the light of a movie theater projector because they went straight to video. I never saw an ad for this. That would be very embarrassing considering that Eddie Murphy's A Thousand Words was in purgatory for years before making four times that number on opening weekend. Willis is just at that stage of his career; Morgan Freeman, Al Pacino, and Robert DeNiro have gone through the same thing.

David Mumpower: What pops in my head as I think about this opening weekend performance is that it's roughly how much Peyton Manning earned in Sunday's game. He could have doubled the box office of the movie if he had used that single day's pay to buy all of his fans a ticket to see The Cold Light of Day. Then again, the other thing that pops in my head is that Henry Cavill's Superman campaign is off to a rough start. Of course, virtually no one who watches Man of Steel will be the least bit aware of the existence of The Cold Light of Day.

As for the worst Bruce Willis movie, this is like being the worst STD. I love John McClane going all the way back to his days as David Addison. I cannot ignore that he has Eddie Murphy-itis, though. Any paycheck is accepted, script issues notwithstanding. Picking his worst movie is brutal. I walked out of Sunset, probably the last time in my life I did that. I am firmly in the HATE camp on Hudson Hawk. Color of Night committed the cardinal sin of being a boring sex flick. I doubt Breakfast of Champions even made sense to Kurt Vonnegut. If I can only pick one, however, I agree that The Whole Ten Yards is the clear choice. The first movie was great with the follow-up being a perfect example of how woeful sequels can be. It lacks in totality any understanding of why the original was so entertaining.

Kim Hollis: I am happy to say that I have pretty much avoided all the bad Bruce Willis movies over the years. Somehow, I've been able to sort the good ones from the awful. The worst one is probably Alpha Dogs, but that's hardly a Bruce Willis movie. At least I can be content in the knowledge that he was in the wonderful Moonrise Kingdom earlier this year.

Along the same lines, I'm not entirely sure we can call The Cold Light of Day a Bruce Willis movie, either. He's in it, sure, but this is a Henry Cavill movie - clearly something no one wanted.

Reagen Sulewski: It's another home run from Summit! I expect them to pull out a secret sixth Twilight movie any day now.

Personally, I have to side with the Breakfast of Champions mention as his worst, one of the more unpleasant experiences I've ever had in a theater, and I've been to shock gore film fests.

Tim Briody: Well, it's not his fault, but a movie I absolutely can't stand that just happens to contain Bruce Willis is The Fifth Element. So there.

Continued:       1       2