A Forgotten Henry Cavill And Bruce Willis Action Movie Is On Streaming Now
Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis starred in The Cold Light Of Day, now on HBO Max.
Have you ever heard of the 2012 film The Cold Light of Day that starred a pre-Superman Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis as father and son? If you haven’t, you certainly wouldn’t be alone. But, if you like your spy thrillers more Bourne than Bond, you can check out this forgotten film now on HBO Max.
The Cold Light of Day stars Henry Cavill as a man who finds out his family has been kidnapped by foreign agents that are after a briefcase was stolen by his father (Bruce Willis). The film was directed by Mabrouk El Mechri from a screenplay penned by Scott Wiper and John Petro.
Sigourney Weaver also starred with Veronica Echegui, Caroline Goodall, Raf Gavron, Joseph Mawle, Oscar Jaenada, Lolo Herrero, Mark Ullod, Emma Hamilton, Michael Budd, Alex Amaral, Jim Piddock, Paloma Bloyd, Roschdy Zem, and Colm Meaney.
Unfortunately, it’s a bit difficult to recommend The Cold Light of Day to anyone but the staunchest fans of Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis. A great leading cast can’t save a fairly tepid and rote spy thriller. Even if you head to the Rotten Tomatoes page for this film, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone with anything nice to say about it.
The film has an abysmal 4% from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a barely better 29% from audiences. Sometimes, critics and audiences are at odds about a film, but The Cold Light of Day is not one of those cases. Henry Cavill, Bruce Willis, and Sigourney Weaver are perfectly serviceable in their roles, but they don’t have much to work with.
As far as money goes, The Cold of Light of Day could also be considered a failure in that arena. Henry Cavill wasn’t the box office draw that he is today, and Bruce Willis and Sigourney Weaver weren’t able to get butts in seats at the time either. The film only managed to bring in $1.8 million in its opening weekend and $25.4 million worldwide, against a budget of $20 million.
Fortunately, both Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis would have greener pastures ahead of them after The Cold Light of Day‘s abject failure. Cavill burst into superstardom as Superman in the DCEU’s Man of Steel. He would then immediately follow it up with the much better spy film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
Henry Cavill would go on to star in other major DCEU blockbusters like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League. He would also embody Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher Netflix series and play a fantastic villain in another great spy film, Mission: Impossible – Fallout. Bruce Willis didn’t quite hit the highs of his earlier career after The Cold Light of Day, but he did have great performances in films like Looper and Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.
While Henry Cavill has unfortunately lost out on his big Superman role and stepped away from The Witcher, he has more spy films on his horizon. He must still be trying to make up for The Cold Light of Day because his upcoming Argylle sounds like it will be another great spy film. Meanwhile, Bruce Willis has sadly finished his acting career as he retired due to his dementia diagnosis.
Unfortunately, Henry Cavill and Bruce Willis won’t get the chance to star in a good film together, as their talents combined with a worthy screenplay could have been something special. We can at least look forward to Cavill’s aforementioned Argylle movie, which will be directed by Kingsman filmmaker Matthew Vaughn. The cast includes Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Samuel L. Jackson, Bryan Cranston, Ariana DeBose, Catherine O’Hara, Rob Delaney, Jing Lusi, Jason Fuchs, and pop star Dua Lipa.
After Argylle Henry Cavill is starring in, you guessed it, another spy film titled The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare that will be directed by Guy Ritchie. The film will follow a group of highly-skilled soldiers to attack behind enemy lines during World War II. While we wait to see Cavill’s next batch of spy films, you can watch him and Bruce Willis on HBO Max today to see how terrible the start to Cavill’s spy roles truly was.
