Bruce Willis-Led ‘Death Wish’ Remake Shooting for November Release
Decades before Taken got tooken, Charles Bronson went on a revenge rampage. Liam Neeson had his very particular set of skills, but in 1974’s Death Wish, Bronson had a well-kempt mustache, a dead wife, a hospitalized daughter, and a white-hot grudge. The middle-aged man cut a violent swath of retribution through the criminal underground in search of justice for the female members of his family, and in doing so, spawned a genre of brutal, occasionally sadistic action films rooted in mature masculinity. Bruce Willis was one of the many beneficiaries of Bronson’s legacy, and now he’ll repay the favor with a remake of the classic action flick.
The project was first announced last year, along with the tantalizing information that vintage genre-movie obsessive Eli Roth would direct the picture. And today, Variety brings the news that this thing is real, it’s all shot and done with, and we’ll be seeing it in no time. Annapurna has set a November 22 release for the film, marking it as one of the earliest offerings as a distributor in addition to a production company. That early in the game, it’d be wise to get a hit under their belt, and while their maiden-voyage release Detroit could connect, the neo-Death Wish will be an easy sell to the American public.
Willis will star alongside Vincent D’Onofrio, Kimberly Elise, Mike Epps, and Elisabeth Shue in the new film, though a five-picture franchise (the fate of the original Death Wish) is far from guaranteed. What we can count on is Hollywood’s toughest cueball growling his way through some leathery dialogue, shooting a whole bunch of guns, and convincingly grimacing for 100 minutes or so. And is that not a gift all its own?