Media Made to Prove the Haters Wrong

[u/Ultrimus-Prime]

Tunak Tunak Tun (Daler Mehndi) Critics claimed his music videos were only popular because they featured attractive women dancing. Mehndi responded by making a music video featuring nobody except multiple green-screen versions of himself. It became a massive hit and his most famous song.

Five Nights at Freddy’s - Scott Cawthon previously made a family-friendly game called Chipper & Sons Lumber Co. Critics complained that the characters looked like creepy animatronics. Rather than abandon that visual style, Cawthon decided to turn them into an actual horror game using scary animatronics.

Superman Kingdom Come - Mark Waid and Alex Ross were reacting to the 1990s trend of increasingly violent, cynical superheroes.

Their story deliberately challenged the belief that traditional superheroes like Superman were outdated. It portrayed the consequences of abandoning heroic ideals and argued that compassion, restraint, and morality were still essential to superheroes.

[u/Slow_Bowler8285]

Occasionally comedic actors, comedians turned actors and action stars will do dramatic roles to show critics that yes they can act

E.g. Adam Sandler

• Punch Drunk Love
• Reign Over Me
• Uncut Gems

Sylvester Stallone

• Copland
• King of Tulsa

Jim Carrey-

• The Truman Show
• Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind
• The Majestic

These movies might get critical acclaim and even award show buzz, but they rarely make as much money as the actor's standard comedy or action fare.

[u/Amazing_Working_6157 → u/Slow_Bowler8285]

He was known more for comedy and romance/comedies at the time before Bruce Willis starred in Diehard. Now if someone sees the name Bruce Willis, most usually think of an action hero like John McClane (I'm not exception to this).

[u/Just1neObserveR → u/Amazing_Working_6157]

People really forget/ aren’t aware of the early part of Bruce Willis’s career. He was the lead in Moonlighting (tv comedy drama) and his first two credited film roles were in Blind Date (rom-com) and Sunset (comedy western). Then he started in Die Hard, and was a very unlikely choice given the hyper muscled leading men of the 70s and 80s, and the rest is history.

[u/TheComplimentarian → u/Just1neObserveR]

The studios had the vapors over the casting…A cherubic balding funny man as the action star, and a complete unknown as the villain? They hated the idea of it.

[u/HydrangeaDream → u/TheComplimentarian]

Love that you called him cherubic, Bruce Willis was one of my first celebrity crushes (Saw him in Fifth Element).

[u/DeconstructedKaiju → u/Amazing_Working_6157]

The ironic part is he was specifically chosen because he was just a schlubby guy and not an action hero so his pushing himself so hard and being creative was going against the norms at the time... and no one learned anything from this at all.

[u/Amazing_Working_6157 → u/DeconstructedKaiju]

Well that's the thing I like about John McClane in the first 3 movies: he gets put through the ringer, he'd rather be doing or be anywhere else other than the situation he's in, he's crafty, fairly often lucky, and even have times he's pretty much panicking. In the first Die Hard when he ties the hose around himself and knows he's gotta jump to escape the helicopter and the very soon to be exploding rooftop, he's pretty much crying because he's so scared to do it. It makes him feel very human for an action hero, and despite all that, he's still a badass.

[u/DeconstructedKaiju → u/Amazing_Working_6157]

Absolutely, it was the greatest strength of the character and the movie but almost no action movies learned from it and it's sad. I love Arnold's movies but they were treated as the defining mold and we're still getting action movies like that today but not many Die Hard likes.