The Razzies Have a New Worst Performance Category, and There's Only One Nominee: Bruce Willis

For decades, the Razzies have surfed the Oscar hype wave to spotlight their own irreverent take on the worst films and performances of the year.

For the 2022 ceremony, there’s going to be a guaranteed winner: Die Hard actor Bruce Willis.

Razzies officials have announced that a new category has been added to recognize one of 2021’s most prolific actors, who appeared in a staggering eight straight-to-video films during the year. Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in a 2021 Movie will declare a “winner” for one of the films, which included American Siege; Apex; Cosmic Sin; Deadlock; Fortress; Midnight in the Switchgrass; Out of Death; and Survive the Game.

Willis’s recent oeuvre has been described as part of the “geezer teaser” genre by Vulture, a strategy that banks on the celebrity of veteran actors to sell low-budget films. Willis, John Travolta, Robert De Niro, and Steven Segal are among those who can receive seven-figure paydays for just a few days on set. The result is that the actors might only see a few minutes of screen time per film. For 2020's Survive the Night, Willis is onscreen for roughly 10 minutes.

“With Bruce Willis, there’s almost a model for how he features in these movies,” film executive Adam Champ told Vulture. “...You have Bruce Willis at the intro of the movie, so people are like, 'Great, this is a Bruce Willis movie.' But he’s actually a secondary character who shows up sporadically."

If you need a primer, Willis's output was recently examined by YouTube critics Red Letter Media:

Other Razzie nominees include Space Jam: A New Legacy for Worst Picture; Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) for Worst Actor; Willis’s Midnight in the Switchgrass co-star Megan Fox for Worst Actress; and Ben Platt “and Any Character Who Acts Like Platt Singing 24-7 is Normal” for Worst Screen Couple.

The Razzies will be awarded on March 26, the day before the Academy Awards. There probably won't be much overlap between the winners.