Bruce Willis Once Rejected $139M Movie Salary, Still Made the Bank

In 1995, Bruce Willis was a superstar. It's not like he isn't one these days, but back then, he was pretty much unrivaled, and every other director was happy to get Bruce into his movie.

Unluckily for them, the actor's salaries were immense, and not everyone in the industry could afford to even extend an invitation to him.

Despite that, Willis has always been a man of his own, and even though he could've spent the time shooting another multimillion movie, he once decided to work on a film for free out of pure respect for the director.

And he wasn't the only one.

The movie that caught the actor's attention was the science fiction 12 Monkeys. Directed by Terry Gilliam, this 1995 film quickly became a cult classic thanks to the professionalism of the team, the thought-provoking nature of the plot, and the presence of big stars like Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

The former was a huge fan of Terry Gilliam's works, so when he saw the opportunity to work with the director, he had to jump right in.

After Gilliam explained that 12 Monkeys had a very tight budget and couldn't afford a star of such scale, Bruce Willis told him that he wants to work on the project free of charge.

After 12 Monkeys' overwhelming success and $139M of box office revenue, the actor was still paid handsomely, of course — the contract still implied a share of the revenue.

But Willis had no way to know if the movie was going to be a hit or not when signing up for it, so it was a big risk on his part, and it paid off.

Curiously, Bruce was not the only actor who put off his financial gains to star in Terry Gilliam's movie: Brad Pitt, too, wanted to work with the director and settled for a very modest salary despite already being one of the most high-paying actors.

Source: IMDb