Apparently, everyone thought it was a good time to see Bruce Willis’ ‘A Good Day to Die Hard’ this weekend.
Willis’ fifth installment of the ‘Die Hard’ series was #1 in the box office this weekend, raking in $25 million between Friday to Sunday, $33.2 million in total since it’s Valentine’s Day debut.
The film is successful despite criticism for its gun violence and overall bad reviews. Willis defended his violent films, arguing that “no one commits a crime because they saw a film.”
“There’s nothing to support that,” he told the Associated Press. “We’re not making movies about people that have gone berserk, or gone nuts. Those kind of movies wouldn’t last very long at all.”
Willis reprises his role as Detective John McClane who travels to Moscow to find his estranged son, who also happens to be an undercover spy, and the two partner-up to defeat Russian terrorists.
‘Die Hard’ isn’t the only film to excel in the box office this year despite criticism for its violent content. Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ is now Tarantino’s top-grossing film, even after critics attacked the award-winning director for debuting his gory film in the wake of Sandy Hook.
But ‘Die Hard’ does seem to be the only revived 1980s action series that isn’t dying. Both Sylvester Stallone’s ‘Bullet to the Head’ and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘The Last Stand’ were box office flops this year.
“There’s still life left in the ‘Die Hard‘ franchise,” Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com told the New York Post. “Given the fact that pretty much every other R-rated action movie that’s come out this year has completely fallen flat, this is a pretty good showing.”
