All right ladies and gentlemen, you are now going to take part in an epic battle where you are the deciding factor in who is the victor! Today, I made the bold (but true) statement that Bruce Willis is the greatest action hero. Ever. Katrina countered and stated that Harrison Ford is, in fact, the greatest action hero ever. Our battle of whits raged on for hours before we decided that neither of us had the necessary facts to prove who is right. Naturally, with this being movie-related, I figured I would write out a post and let you, my readers, help in deciding a winner.
Being a fair person (and completely confident), I've decided to give you both sides of the story so you will make an educated decision.
Note: This is information/data from various sources. Since Harrison Ford is 13 years older than Bruce Willis, I thought it would be only fair to only count Ford's accomplishments up until he was 54 (Willis' current age). Therefore, Ford's data is only up to 1996 (so settle down Katrina).
Number of Action* movies/Total number of Movies
Bruce: 22/71 Harrison: 14/44
*Action as defined by IMDB (excludes Sci-Fi, War, and Westerns)
As you can see, Bruce has been in more action movies, but Harrison has a higher percentage of action movies total.
Highest Grossing Action Film
Bruce: $201,573,391 (Armageddon)
Harrison: $460,935,665 (Star Wars)
Total Box Office Gross (Action only)
Bruce: $1,243,513,945
Harrison: $2,196,277,457
Harrison has apparently taken the lead in Highest and Total Box Office Gross, but we are forgetting one thing. While Bruce was in only one major series (Die Hard), Harrison has been in two (Indiana Jones and Star Wars). While these are very important, it is also important to look at the movies these men made where they weren't dependant on the fan-base of a series. So...
Total Gross of Stand-Alone Films
Bruce: $808,422,244
Harrison: $549,391,092
Granted, numbers can only tell us so much. We need to look at the awards that each man was given for Action movies or general acting skill.
Won/Nominated
Bruce: 1/7
Harrison: 5/13
While Ford was nominated for many Best Actor awards, Willis was nominated specifically for a Favorite Male Action Star in 2008 at the People's Choice Awards.
My argument: It is no secret that Harrison Ford is an amazing actor and has produced amazing movies. I am not comparing acting talent because, based on above awards, we can see that Ford would probably win that. What I am comparing is Action Star Status. Who do we all think of when we think "action movie"? Who portrays the toughest action hero? Who is able to survive the craziest explosions and meanest bad guys? Who is the biggest badass of them all?
So I would like to extend a vote out to you, the reader. After taking everything into account (including your answer to the Think Fast question above), who do you consider the greatest action hero?
3 comments:
I stand by my facebook comment: Ka-der, Bruce Willis is the obvious choice
Kristina
Sorry sweetie, but I do have to agree with Katrina on this one. When she asked me who I thought was the the greatest action star, I immediately thought Indiana Jones and then Harrison Ford. I think it's because of the rating of the Die Hards which blocked them from my existence for so long, but I am much more familiar with Harrison Ford's work and I've known of him longer. For a long time the only place I saw Bruce Willis was in The Fifth Element. And I like Indiana Jones better than that. Not to mention Han Solo kicks butt. Again, sorry. But hopefully this ridiculously long post will make up for me voting on the Redhead's side ; )
PS. I think the only way to decide fairly is to first make a judging system based on the criteria that make an actor an action hero and then watch all of their action movies while critiquing them based on that system and then adding all the points together. If you need a third impartial judge...you'll have to work around my schedule =D
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