During the late 1980s and the entire 1990s, Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis were two of the highest-paid and most popular actors in Hollywood, but that level of fame doesn’t last forever. These days, you’re more likely to find the duo appearing in a string of VOD action thrillers, but at least Gibson’s recent track record has been vastly superior to that of his counterpart.
Blood Father, Dragged Across Concrete, Fatman and Boss Level are arguably a whole lot better than anything Willis has put out in the last decade, but the similarities between the pair of former A-listers can’t be denied, especially when you look at the talent involved in Gibson’s latest project.
As per Deadline, the Lethal Weapon icon will headline Hot Seat, where he plays an ex-hacker forced to break into a banking building by an anonymous villain who planted a bomb under a chair at the office of Chad Michael Murray’s character, who finds himself stuck on his ass with nowhere to go.
Hot Seat will be helmed by Randall Emmett, who directed Willis in the turgid Midnight in the Switchgrass, and produced a huge number of his relentless VOD genre films. Emmett was also involved with Survive the Night and Survive the Game, two completely unrelated movies that partnered Willis and Murray, and he’s just wrapped the duo’s upcoming Fortress.
That doesn’t fill us with much confidence for Hot Seat, but few do grizzled and dangerous charisma better than Mel Gibson, so it might be worth checking out.