How Much Money Did Bruce Willis Earn From Four M. Night Shyamalan Movies?

Willis is a two-time Primetime Emmy Award winner for the TV shows, Friends and Moonlighting. In his career, Willis has worked with some of the best directors of our time, such as Quentin Tarantino, Luc Besson, Michael Bay, and M. Night Shyamalan.

Willis has worked with Shyamalan in four movies. Three of which were parts of one series. Willis and Shyamalan have a very good relationship and work so well together that Shaylaman has said before that he owes Bruce Willis his career. While Shyamalan hasn’t created that many movies, he sure has made a ton of money and got two Oscar nominations out of it. However, how much did Willis make for those movies?

Bruce Willis Was The Lead In The Oscar Nominated Movie The Sixth Sense

The movie was released in 1999, and it revolves around a child psychologist who is treating a young boy who claims that he is able to see dead people. The movie takes turns and twists, only to find out that the main character is actually dead too.

‘The Sixth Sense’ went on to be nominated for six Academy Awards, and one of them was for the unrecognizable former child star, Haley Joel Osment. The movie was a smashing hit, earning $672 million.

Related: Is ‘The Sixth Sense’ Based On A True Story?

While Willis reportedly took a salary of $14 million, he actually made around $114 million from the movie, which is the highest salary Willis has ever taken for a project. The movie originally had a budget of $40 million. When Willis was signing the contract, he asked for an upfront payment. He managed to get 35% of the budget as his salary and he got $14 million. Yet, Willis was not satisfied with this deal, and he negotiated a better one.

The movie star asked for 17% of the movie’s profits from the box office, as well as rights to the movie’s video sales, and he got it. So when ‘The Sixth Sense’ made over $600 million worldwide, Willis ended up making $114 million for the movie over time.

Bruce Willis Was A Co-Star In The Movie Unbreakable

After such a huge success with ‘The Sixth Sense’, Shyamalan reached out to Willis to be in his next movie in 2000 alongside Samuel L. Jackson. Willis took him up on it, and he played David Dunn, a security guard who survives a train wreck that changed his life. Dunn was then approached by Elijah Prince, who is also ‘Mr. Glass,’ played by Samuel L. Jackson, and he claims that Dunn had superhuman abilities.

This movie wasn’t as much of a hit as Shyamalan’s previous one. While ‘Unbreakable’ had a bigger budget of $75 million, the movie made about $248.1 million at the box office.

Related: Bruce Willis Fired His Entire Team For Not Appearing In This Film

For this movie, Willis made $20 million as per his request. While this wasn’t as much as he made from ‘The Sixth Sense’ the initial payment was higher.

Bruce Willis Returned As Dunn In A Cameo In Split

In 2016, Shyamalan wrote and directed the film ‘Split’ and the movie gained a lot of popularity. Starring James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy, the movie was about a guy named Kevin, who has dissociative identity disorder (DID), in which he has many personalities.

Related: M. Night Shyamalan Got James McAvoy To Star In ‘Split’ After This Random Encounter

The movie takes a turn and gets very superhuman, with Kevin suddenly turning very strong and gaining the ability to walk on walls, turning into ‘The Beast.’ That’s when Dunn, the security guard, makes an appearance, and it’s revealed to the audience that ‘Split’ is actually a sequel to ‘Unbreakable’ and the events are happening in the same universe.

The movie’s budget was $9 million, and it made a worldwide gross of $278.5 million. It is unclear how much money Willis was paid for his brief scene, but on such a tight budget, it’s plausible that he didn’t get a high salary.

Bruce Willis Played Dunn As A Co-Star In Glass

While ‘Glass’ was not M. Night Shyamalan’s worst movie, it sure wasn’t the best. Following the events of ‘Split,’ and after Dunn sees what Kevin has become, he goes to fight him, and it turns out that Dunn does have superpowers.

In ‘Glass,’ Dunn is called ‘The Overseer,’ and he is a vigilante that has super strength and fights crime. When Kevin and Dunn are arrested by the police, they are both taken and kept in a psychiatric hospital, where ‘Mr. Glass’ is being kept. The three undergo a trial and ‘Mr. Glass’ manipulates them to show the world that superhumans exist.

The movie was released in 2019, and it had a budget of $20 million, and three major A-List stars. Willis reportedly makes about $20 million per movie, so it’s unlikely that was his salary upfront for ‘Glass,’ since that would mean he took the whole budget.

However, ‘Glass’ grossed $247 million at the box office, so it’s safe to say that Willis along with Jackson and McAvoy had some kind of deal to get percentages of the film’s profit. This, of course, could mean that Willis’ salary eventually rounded up to $20 million.