Jason Statham is known for his action films, which mostly follow a similar formula. But it wasn’t always as big as it is today. A cult director gave him a chance when he had a bad experience with Bruce Willis.
Which director is it about? Most people probably know the French director and screenwriter Luc Besson for The Fifth Element or Léon – The Professional. As a writer, he is also responsible for the action film The Transporter together with Robert Mark Kamen.
Previously, Statham was known from jack, queen, king, grAs or snatch. But The Trasnporter was released in 2002 and was basically the blueprint for films that he still makes today. Even in the 2024 film The Beekeeper you can see patterns from The Transporter.
According to Kamen, Jason Statham only exists as a transporter because Luc had problems with Bruce Willis on The Fifth Element.
You can see a trailer for the film here:
The Transporter – Trailer for the French action film with Jason Statham
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We have to create our own movie star
What happened between Luc Besson and Bruce Willis? In an interview with entertainment site UPROXX, screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen spoke about The Fifth Element and The Transporter. It was also mentioned that Bruce Willis is supposed to be a difficult guy. He doesn’t say specifically what went wrong, but the relationship between Besson and Bruce Willis was probably not good:
It was very difficult and Luc dealt with it. But Luc wasn’t used to that. After he did that, he came to me and said, “We need to create our own movie stars.”
Kamen then says that they had to create a star for themselves, and in this case it was Jason Statham in The Transporter.
Luc Besson also spoke to Screen Rant about the problems with Bruce Willis. There he explained that he made a deal with him that he only had to work on the film for 4 days instead of 5. Luc Besson isn’t the only director who had problems with Willis either.
How did The Transporter go? The Transporter was a success. If you look at the numbers on Box Office Mojo, you’ll see that the film grossed almost $44 million worldwide on a budget of $21 million.
The film developed into a series with 2 sequels, a reboot and a series.
What happened next with Luc Besson? After The Transporter, he worked as a screenwriter on Taken and also made Liam Neeson a great action actor. As a director and screenwriter, he also worked on films such as Lucy with Scarlett Johansson and Valerian with Cara Delevingne. His last film was released in 2023. That was the bizarre Dogman with Caleb Landry Jones. You can find more action tips in this list: 5 action films over 18 for die-hard film fans