Assassin gets an official release date, which was announced as Bruce Willis’ final film after he recently retired from acting due to aphasia.
Assassin, the final previously announced film starring Bruce Willis, has received an official release date. The actor, who first rose to fame thanks to his role in the sitcom Moonlighting, has been an action and drama star since his lead role in the smash hit 1988 film Die Hard, holding roles in popular films including Pulp Fiction and The Sixth Sense. Last March, Willis' family announced that he had retired from acting after a diagnosis of aphasia, and a health update last week revealed that he had also been diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia.
Per Collider, Assassin is now set to release on March 31. The release will be day-and-date, so the film will be available in certain theaters and VOD on the same day. This is the same weekend as the release of the fantasy epic Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, so it could provide some solid counter-programming for the more family-friendly outing.
Assassin is one of a string of lower-budget action films that Willis made in the late 2010s and early 2020s. Other titles in this vein included Midnight in the Switchgrass, Fortress, and Vendetta. This particular outing is the debut directorial feature from Jesse Atlas, who co-wrote the film with Aaron Wolfe, adapting their 2017 short film Let Them Die Like Lovers.
The film is centered around a futuristic technology that allows people to carry out undercover missions using a microchip that allows them to take over other people's bodies. Willis plays Valmora, the leader of the operation that uses this technology. Assassin also stars Legends of Tomorrow's Dominic Purcell, Coming 2 America's Nomzamo Mbatha, and Luke Cage's Mustafa Shakir.
Considering Willis has starred in nearly two dozen similar films since 2020, it remains to be seen if Assassin can garner much audience interest. In particular, several of his recent films align with the action genre, including his final film. However, the fact that it is the final film of his that was known to be in development may boost its status over its peers. Assassin has an R-rating and an 88-minute movie runtime, which could register as Willis' final acting time before full retirement. It will also serve as the case of honoring Willis' Hollywood legacy that spans three decades.
Source: Collider
Brennan (he/him) is a senior writer at Screen Rant and a millennial who knows more about 80’s slasher films than he has any right to. A former host of the Attack of the Queerwolf podcast, Brennan has been writing and podcasting about pop culture (especially horror films) for a decade. Brennan’s interests also include the Muppets, bubblegum pop from around the world, and reading (especially Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, the manga of Junji Ito, and novels of magical realism). His favorite film directors are Wes Craven and Pedro Almodóvar.
