As one of the Hollywood actors who routinely took home a massive paycheck, Bruce Willis became wealthy from several movies. And before his family shared that he would no longer act because of his aphasia, Willis starred in several movies. The news was heartbreaking for fans who have been watching him since his breakout role in the 1988 action film Die Hard. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the health condition that Willis has affects his brain and can make it challenging to write, read, and talk.
Now that Bruce Willis has had to halt his acting career, what kind of money is he losing out on? Since he has been earning massive salaries from all of his movies for several decades now, it's easy to think that he could have continued to make a lot of money if he had been able to continue the career that he loves.
How Much Money Is Bruce Willis Losing Out On Due To His Aphasia?
Bruce Willis's high The Sixth Sense salary was amazing at the time and is still incredibly impressive today. He was paid $14 million and eventually made $114 million because he got some of the profits.
Celebrity Net Worth reported that while Keanu Reeves made $156 million for The Matrix and its sequel, Willis made the most money of any actor for one film. And Willis didn't stop making tons of money there, either.
According to Celebrity Net Worth, the Die Hard movies paid him $52 million, although it could be even more. He was paid $5 million, $7.5 million, $15 million, and $25 million for the four movies in the franchise.
Bruce Willis's $250 million net worth proves what a highly paid actor he was. And since Willis always starred in many movies each year, he is missing out on millions now that he has been forced to stop acting. If he was able to keep acting and could make even just five movies a year, it seems easy to guess that he would make tens of millions annually.
Between 2020 and 2023, Willis starred in 23 movies, which is definitely a high number. It's worth noting that these are direct-to-video films, which would have likely paid less than his previous work like Die Hard and The Sixth Sense.
Although people think of Bruce Willis as an action star, he has starred in other kinds of projects. In 1989, he showed his funny side in the comedy Look Who's Talking To and also starred in the sequel Look Who's Talking Too which came out in 1990. He also did some voice work, voicing the character of Spike in the 2003 film Rugrats Go Wild and Muddy Grimes in the 1996 comedy Beavis and Butt-Head Do America.
Willis definitely made more action movies than other types, however, and it appears that he was paid well for all of them.
It's really tough when someone has to retire before they are ready. And if not for the actor's health, it doesn't seem that Willis would have wanted to stop making movies. He not only has lost out on future income but also is no longer able to do the work that he must love.
In a 2013 interview with GQ, Bruce Willis thought about retiring in the future. He thought about Cary Grant and he said, "Well, I have to stop doing it at some point, and I would like to do it with the same grace that he did. Who’s another actor who continued to work? Eastwood is still doing it. And he’s still doing great, telling stories. Telling stories is a way to make money."
How Did Bruce Willis's Aphasia Change His Acting Career?
While Bruce Willis's family explained that he has aphasia in 2022, it seems that he had been suffering for a while, which is really heartbreaking. And it appears that his health struggles were apparent on several movie sets.
While Willis continued to work, it seems that people could tell that Willis had a health issue, and one of his directors gave an interview about what it was like seeing Willis on set.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Mike Burns, who directed the movie Out Of Death, said that he was aware that Bruce Willis was having a tough time remembering lines. But as they worked together, he learned about Willis's condition and he felt terrible about it.
Burns said that Willis had to memorize 25 pages of dialogue from the script and that he made sure that the actor could shoot his scenes in a single day.
Burns told The Los Angeles Times, “After the first day of working with Bruce, I could see it firsthand and I realized that there was a bigger issue at stake here and why I had been asked to shorten his lines."
Burns continued in his interview that through working with Willis on the set of Wrong Place in October 2021, he could tell that Willis was really suffering. He said, “I didn’t think he was better; I thought he was worse."
While Willis was diagnosed in 2022, no one is really sure how long he was struggling. However, a source told The Sun that it might have been for two decades before it came out into the spotlight.
According to The Sun, a source said, "People who have been close to the family over these last twenty years or so knew this day was coming and see now that the inevitable has finally happened, Bruce is stepping away from acting and publicly acknowledging what's going on with him."
However, Willis's family hasn't specified when they knew that the actor had a serious health condition.
Hollywood definitely feels terribly for Willis and hopes that he is okay. Sylvester Stallone, who starred with Willis in The Expendables, told The Hollywood Reporter in November 2022, "Bruce is going through some really, really difficult times." He said Willis was "sort of incommunicado. That kills me. It’s so sad."
