'Live Free or Die' softly?

Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 at 8:18 AM Central

by John Couture

The first returns are in for Bruce Willis' latest turn as NYC cop John McClane and they're not exactly setting Hollywood on fire. Live Free or Die Hard pulled in just $9.1 million on Wednesday, its first day of release.

To compare blockbuster to potential blockbuster, Spider-Man 2 set the Wednesday single day record with $40.4 million when it debuted in 2004. Things won't get any easier for John McClane as Pixar's latest Ratatouille and Michael Moore's Sicko open today.

With this pace and the new competition, John McClane better find his second or third Yippe-Kiyay in there somewhere.