'A glorious shambles': The Bruce Willis 'turkey' that became a cult hit

When Hudson Hawk was released 35 years ago, it was "savaged" by critics and was "notorious for its behind-the-scenes chaos". How did it build such an enthusiastic following?

It all started so innocently. In 1980, when Bruce Willis was a bartender and jobbing actor in New York, he made friends with a musician, Robert Kraft. One day Kraft played his buddy a song he was working on about a thief named Hudson Hawk, and Willis liked it so much that he exclaimed, "This is a movie – and we're gonna make this movie!"

It's the kind of thing that thousands of would-be stars have said to their friends, but in this case, the would-be star kept his word. In May 1991, 35 years ago, Hudson Hawk flew into cinemas.

What Willis didn't predict was that his crime caper would become notorious for its catastrophic behind-the-scenes chaos, or that most reviewers – and some of the cast – would declare that the Hawk was a turkey. On the other hand, he also didn't predict that Hudson Hawk would eventually become a cult favourite, with diehard fans of the Die Hard star's passion project calling it a misunderstood classic.

"I love it," says David Hughes, who has just written a book on the subject, The Unmaking of Hudson Hawk. "It definitely laid an egg at the box office – marketing fumbled it and critics savaged it – but it's no turkey. It's funny! And if you don't like one joke, or one over-the-top performance, there'll be another along in a few seconds."

Nick de Semlyen's book on Hollywood action stars, The Last Action Heroes, features Willis among its "kings of carnage", but he isn't quite as enthusiastic. "Hudson Hawk is a glorious shambles," he tells the BBC. "It's the kind of action movie that could only have been made in an era where stars' every 'suggestion' [was] treated like holy writ. With Willis wanting to meld stunts, comedy and – yikes – singing, it mutated into something truly bizarre."

It didn't take long for Willis to make the leap from bartender to superstar. From 1985 to 1989, ABC detective series Moonlighting established him as a wisecracking leading man, and then Die Hard in 1988 made him a bona fide Hollywood A-lister. The producer of Die Hard and its even more lucrative sequel was Joel Silver, so when Willis asked him to produce a goofy, globe-trotting heist movie based on his and Kraft's concept, he didn't need much persuading. However, he wasn't keen on the first draft of the script, by two of the writers on the Moonlighting staff, so he called in Steven de Souza, the co-writer of the first two Die Hards.

De Souza wrote "a very fine, very fun caper that formed the basis of the film we saw", says Hughes. To summarise – if it's possible to summarise Hudson Hawk – Willis's title character is a cappuccino-loving cat burglar who is forced to steal various knick-knacks designed by Leonardo da Vinci. When slotted together, these knick-knacks will complete Leonardo's greatest invention: a machine that can turn lead into gold.

'Spinning out of control'

So far, so reasonable. Michael Lehmann was hired to direct, having just made the acclaimed high-school black comedy Heathers. And when De Souza had to move onto another project, Heathers' screenwriter, Daniel Waters, was brought in for the next draft.

But Waters didn't want to write an action film, he wanted to deconstruct and parody the genre. As Hughes tells the BBC: "The clash of sensibilities of the screenwriter of Die Hard and the screenwriter of Heathers –........

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