#5. Hudson Hawk (1991) | Own Hudson Hawk ($8 @ Amazon.com)
Why shouldn’t have flopped: The premise of a burglar getting out of the joint and then getting back into the game is common, but at the time, Bruce Willis could still carry it. A year after Die Hard 2, which wasn’t as good as the OG but still cool (and an Oscar winner compared to later sequels), fans expected something more substantial than a corny script with impromptu song-and-dance numbers and lazy one-liners.
Why it flopped: Two years after Look Who’s Talking and a year after Die Hard 2, Willis gave us The Last Boy Scout, Billy Bathgate, Mortal Thoughts, The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Hudson Hawk. If you’ve never heard of any of those films, we wouldn’t be shocked, but the ham and cheese of Hawk — a bomb that cost the studio $47,781,920.
What could have saved it: Using Willis’ tough-guy image that was in Die Hard and pairing it with decent comedy — read: better than The Last Boy Scout — may have given Hawk a chance to take off at the box office. That last line? We added that “take off” part to link back to the word “hawk,” Are we proud of our ability to write such lazy copy? Not even a little bit.
Although maybe we’re way off, as YouTube commentator maria jackson so vehemently believes:
So the critics and haters hated it. Well, they don’t speak for everyone. This was an awesome flick, and I was so glad when at the end, Brucie baby actually gets to drink the Cappuccino!
Next: Big Trouble in Little China
