For decades, Bruce Willis wasn’t just a big-name actor. He was one of the more reliable box office draws out there. Just look at his stretch of film credits from 1994 to 2000, when he managed to star in six separate films, five of them completely original projects, that all grossed north of $200 million worldwide. The fact that these productions varied greatly in genre, from science-fiction to thriller to action blockbuster, was a testament to the appeal that Willis had. Audiences were willing to follow him nearly everywhere, especially when he was reprising his “Die Hard” role of John McClane.

His financial credibility continued into the 21^st-century, when he began to play on people’s nostalgia for his 1980s works. This fueled the box office success of productions like “Live Free or Die Hard.” Even into the 2010s, Willis was still headlining lucrative projects like “Looper” and “Red,” giving him further hits roughly 25 years after his first leading man role in a movie, “Blind Date.” All in all, the combined worldwide box office grosses of Willis’ films has tallied well over $6.7 billion. This sum puts him ahead of other famous lead actors such as Liam Neeson, Hugh Jackman, and Jennifer Lawrence, among many others. If one were going by his box office prowess for decades, it would seem inconceivable that Willis would ever be caught in the mire of direct-to-video cinema.