As one of the most iconic actors of his era, Bruce Willis is a movie star that hardly needs an introduction. Willis has put together an amazing career in Hollywood, and this has come thanks to his Die Hard franchise, numerous big screen hits, and even a music career that had some success. The man was untouchable in his prime, and he has the bank account to prove it.
Through the years, Willis has made a fortune for his work on the big screen, with many flicks paying a premium for his services. However, there is one film that landed Willis one of the largest salaries in movie history.
Let’s take a look at Willis’ biggest payday.
Bruce Willis Is An Action Icon
To get some context about how impressive Bruce Willis’ largest salary is, we need to take a look at his overall body of work and see some of his largest paychecks, as well. Needless to say, Willis is an icon of the entertainment industry, and some of the numbers that he has put up at the box office are nothing short of impressive.
While Willis is known for many different films, it can be argued that the Die Hard franchise is his biggest success to date. After all, the franchise encompasses 5 different films spanning multiple decades. At the box office, the films have combined to gross over $1.4 billion worldwide. As if this wasn’t impressive enough, Willis’ John McClane is one of the most recognizable and iconic movie characters ever penned.
Fortunately, Willis has not had to rely on just a single franchise in his film career. The actor has also been featured in massive hits like Look Who’s Talking, The Last Boy Scout, Death Becomes Her, Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys, Armageddon, The Sixth Sense, and a whole lot more. The man has seen and done it all during his time in Hollywood, and few peers come close to matching his accomplishments.
Thanks to his tremendous success, Willis has been able to rake in millions of dollars from the biggest movie studios around.
He’s Made Millions
For his work in the Die Hard franchise, Bruce Willis has made at least a combined $52 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Willis was paid a whopping $5 million for the first film in the franchise, which was quite a lot back in 1988 for a single action flick. As the films went on, his salary would increase to $7.5 million, $15 million, and even going as high as $25 million.
The two Look Who’s Talking films each landed Willis a $10 million payday, while Pulp Fiction saw a massive decrease in salary. For his work with Quentin Tarantino, Willis only made $800,000. A huge reduction in pay, sure, but Pulp Fiction is unanimously considered one of the best films ever made.
Fortunately, some of Willis’ other major hits scored him huge paydays, and thanks to this, the actor was able to achieve a net worth of $250 million. His base salaries have been impressive, and the amount of money that he made with residuals has got to be staggering. All of this has been nice for the actor, but they all manage to pale in comparison to what has been his biggest payday yet.
‘The Sixth Sense’ Paid Him The Most
The Sixth Sense was nothing short of a phenomenon on the big screen, and it was one of those movies that people just had to go out and see. To this day, the film’s surprise twist remains an iconic piece of movie history, and Willis was sublime alongside Haley Joel Osment in the movie. Turns out, this M. Night Shyamalan project would make Willis the most money.
For his initial fee, Willis was paid $14 million. This is an impressive amount on its own, but the savvy actor negotiated a portion of the film’s profits into his contract. Thanks to the film going on to make over $670 million, profits were aplenty, and for Willis, this meant a substantial bump in pay. It has been estimated that Willis was able to take home roughly $100 million for this work in the film. Not only is this his largest payday ever, but it remains one of the highest salaries in film history.
It was an incredible financial feat for Willis, and the biggest actors in the world today would all love nothing more than to have a situation like this take place. Of course, it took the perfect storm for Willis to make it happen, but it did set a benchmark that few others will come close to sniffing.