There was a time when Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone could have reunited in “Expendables 3” but because of the former’s “greed” and “laziness”, Stallone fired him outright!
The relationship between Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis has always seemed rather friendly and far removed from the rivalry that pitted the former against Arnold Schwarzenegger for years. However, all that changed during the preparation of Expendables 3, in which Stallone and Willis were supposed to reunite in front of the camera. We all know now that this never happened… because of a financial dispute!
In fact, the initial plan was for the protagonist of The Sixth Sense to charge $3 million for 4 days of work, but Bruce Willis ended up asking for a million more which Sylvester Stallone did not appreciate it at all. He thus chose to do without the actor, also sharing the following message:
“Greedy and Lazy…A Sure Formula for Career Failure”, he posted on X (formerly Twitter) in August 2013 as you can see below.
In just 10 words, Sylvester Stallone had then caused confusion on the web because this tweet, initially enigmatic, had been posted in the wake of another message in which the actor and screenwriter happily announced the recruitment of another actor for the third part of the saga, and glacially the departure of Bruce Willis of the franchise. With a lapidary “Willis out…”, Mr Church’s fate was sealed.
This anecdote would be representative of a certain bad reputation of the comedian. Kevin Smith has already suggested on his side, after the release of the buddy movie Top Cops (2010), that Willis was “a big d… and a nightmare to leadThe latter was also fired from the set of Woody Allen’s Café Society in 2015, for “inappropriate behavior” and because he did not know his lines well enough (he was replaced by Steve Carell).
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An even more expensive replacement!
So it would seem that Sylvester Stallone was very angry with the situation and with his colleague, but the truth is that it would have cost him much less to accept Willis’ request since Harrison Ford ended up filling the void he had left, and the problem is that his salary ended up being much higher than what the former asked for. Specifically, Ford took home $6.9 million for his participation in Expendables 3.
Perhaps they assumed thatHarrison Ford would bring more spectators into the theaters than Bruce Willis But it wasn’t. In fact, the film disappointed at the box office with a gross of $214 million, becoming the lowest grossing film in the franchise to date. Years later, however, the absolute failure of Expend4bles would almost make what its predecessor had achieved seem like a triumph…
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Of course, Stallone and Willis eventually made peace. The last time the former spoke about the latter, he acknowledged that they hadn’t spoken much since Bruce Willis had retired and his family had announced his diagnosis of aphasia, a disease that affects the brain and causes speech impairment, in 2022.
However, he had posted a series of photos of Bruce Willis and from him on his Instagram account accompanied by the message: “We have known each other for a long time, I wish the best for you and your wonderful family…”
Later that year, he opened up about it again in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, saying: “Bruce is going through a really, really difficult time. He’s gone into silence. It’s killing me, it’s very sad.”
Together, the two actors started the Hollywood Planet brand before obviously reuniting for the first Expendables in 2010.