Bruce Willis thriller Wake shut down over budget woes

Indie thriller Wake, which stars Bruce Willis as a fearless sociopath, shuts down due to lack of funds.

In a grievous blow to Bruce Willis’ ability to buy that second home he was eyeing, production on his upcoming indie action movie Wake has been halted, and all because no one had the foresight to invest in a film featuring the bankable sight of Willis mowing down line after line of terrorists or gangbangers or rouge militiamen or something. The description isn’t really clear about who he’d be killing.

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Here’s what Wake would have been about had it survived long enough to get produced: Willis would play a “sociopath with no fear” who returns to his family’s home on a remote island to attend his brother’s wake. The island is besieged, possibly by wolves, and Willis must protect the family who kicked him out years ago. As a sociopath, the odds are pretty long that he would actually follow through with this plan rather than, say, abscond with his mother’s jewelry and leave his family to die.

Wake would have also starred Ben Kingsley and Ellyn Burstyn in unknown roles, probably as Willis’ parents who always preferred their non-sociopathic son. A would-be production of Benaroya Pictures, the movie was filming in Cleveland when producers got the news that financing fell through.

Freed from their obligations, the actors swept back to California and told their friends stories about the savage Midwest, a place where your breath freezes in front of your face and the snows fall ten feet deep in they fall an inch.

According to Deadline, a source close to the production of Wake said that the movie “was headed in that direction for a while.” It’s not clear whether producers will be able to keep the cast together now that they’ve returned home and are ready to receive offers for movies that don’t film in snow country, but a press release from the Greater Cleveland Film Commission indicates that they’re going to try.

"“The Greater Cleveland Film Commission is aware that the film “Wake” has discontinued filming due to a lack of financing. It is our understanding that they are trying to find the remaining funds to complete the film. So far their experience in Cleveland has been very positive and they hope to return to Cleveland very soon.According to [the] production, Benaroya Pictures is working quickly to remedy the delay in production on the feature film WAKE, and we are optimistic we will resume principal photography in approximately 2-3 weeks.”"

Oh, brave Cleveland. I hope it works out for you.

H/T Cleveland.com

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