10 Actors Who Knew The Movie Was Doomed On Day 1
4. Bruce Willis - Cop Out
The production of Kevin Smith's 2010 buddy cop movie Cop Out sounds utterly miserable, with Smith going on the record to say that star Bruce Willis was a miserable, uncooperative presence throughout shooting and wouldn't even participate in promotional duties, ultimately calling the experience "soul crushing."
This was of course a long time before Willis' unfortunate recent medical diagnosis, which prompted Smith to call his prior comments "petty," yet it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see that Bruce knew he was in a dud and just couldn't muster the effort to turn it on, so to speak.
Given that Willis turned in solid performances in Red, Lay the Favorite, Moonrise Kingdom, and Looper in the two years that followed Cop Out, it clearly wasn't a case of him being generally disinterested in actually acting, but simply knowing the project was no good.
Cop Out was unsurprisingly panned by critics and failed to turn a profit.