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Bruce Willis In Apocalypse
Activision
Taylor Kitsch in John Carter and Taylor Kitsch in Battleship each showed us there's no point in making a huge action movie if you don't have a top-notch action hero. The people at Activision were of the same opinion and tried to apply the idea to video games. So, in 1998, they hired Bruce Willis to star as Trey Kincaid, the main character in Apocalypse.
This idea was groundbreaking enough to get a lot of mainstream press and gamers were eager to play a game not adapted from an action movie but created from the ground up to actually be an action movie. It couldn't possibly go wrong! Well, aside from the fact that it was advertised like this ...
Activision
Ohh, so it was fire that caused his hair loss!
... and actually looked like this:
Activision
Yeah, the dream of playing as Bruce Willis didn't quite work out -- those twelve pixels don't really draw you into the idea of possessing Bruce Willis's body. But at least you get to see him during the cutscenes, right?
Activision
No, not really. Apparently each of Bruce's facial features had their own contract disputes.
So you're not quite Bruce Willis. So what? You're used to that. But here's where things really went off the rails. Delays, complications, and even a cancellation plagued the project. Activision originally intended for Bruce to play a sidekick -- he was meant to run along next to you, the game's real star, and deliver quips as he helped you kill bad guys. But, predictably, at some point during the chaotic development he was bumped up to lead.
Activision
They threw in some poorly animated strippers and just hoped you wouldn't notice the poorly done everything else.
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