The Death Wish franchise is an American vigilante action-thriller film series based on the 1972 novel by Brian Garfield. The films follow the character Paul Kersey, portrayed by Charles Bronson in the original series, and Bruce Willis in the 2018 remake. While the first film received mixed reviews, the subsequent sequels, as well as the remake, were panned by critics. The series made $87 million against a combined production budget of $61 million. Charles Bronson was the only actor to have appeared in all five films.
Background
Paul Kersey Kersey was born in East Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1921. Kersey's father was an English-American who originated from Northern England and his mother comes from Provo, Utah. Kersey's Norman English ancestor, Pierre Whítmoré Keèrsye, anglicized his surname to Kersey. Paul was raised around guns and became a good shot as a child. After Paul's father was killed in a hunting accident, his mother prevented him from being around guns anymore. Kersey served in World War II in the Pacific theater as a combat medic from 1944 to 1945. In 1950 Paul graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. In 1953, he was a conscientious objector in the medical corps in the Korean War. In the late 1950s, he traveled to New York City to settle down.
Novels
Death Wish (1972)
Death Sentence (1975)
Films
Death Wish (1974)
Paul Kersey is an architect who served in the Korean War in the medical corps, and he lives in New York City. One day, three street punks posing as grocery delivery boys break into his apartment while he is at work. They beat up Paul's wife, Joanna, and rape his married daughter, Carol Toby, spray-painting both of them and the wall of their apartment "just for fun". Joanna later dies of her injuries, and Carol is left catatonic. Paul's life is ripped apart by this attack. Paul's boss decides that Paul needs to get out of New York for a while, so he sends him to Tucson, Arizona, to meet a client. There, Paul witnesses a mock gunfight at Old Tucson Studios, a reconstructed Western frontier town that is often used as a movie set. Paul's client gets him interested in guns. It turns out that Paul grew up around guns and is a good shot himself. When Paul returns to New York, he discovers that his client has put a .32 Colt Police Positive revolver into his baggage as a gift. When the police are unable to find the rapists, Paul sets out to find them himself. Paul begins patrolling the streets, killing street criminals as he encounters them.
Death Wish II (1982)
Kersey and his daughter Carol, who is still catatonic, now live in Los Angeles because Paul accepted a deal from the New York City Police Department to leave town so they would not tell anyone that he was the vigilante. Paul now has a new woman in his life, KABC news reporter Geri Nichols. One day, while he is out with Carol and Geri, he is mugged by a gang of five punks. Paul fights back, but they get away. The muggers go to his house, and gag, rape, and murder Kersey's housekeeper. They then wait for Paul to return home and knock him unconscious, and kidnap and rape Carol. The assault brings her out of her coma and she tries to get away by jumping through the second story window, but she dies when she is impaled on an iron fence stake. Beside himself with grief and rage, Paul dedicates his life to avenging Carol. He rents a ratty hotel room under another name, and starts looking for the rapists. When the Los Angeles Police Department deduces that they have a vigilante on their hands, they decide to consult the New York City Police Department, who fear that Kersey is killing criminals again.
Death Wish 3 (1985)
After killing criminals in Los Angeles, Paul Kersey returns to New York City to visit his friend Charley, who lives in one of the worst parts of New York City. When Paul arrives at Charley's apartment, he finds Charley dying after a vicious beating by a gang led by Manny Fraker. The police enter the apartment and find Paul standing over Charley's body. Paul is arrested for the murder, but police chief Richard S. Shriker offers a deal: Paul can kill all the criminals he wants, if he keeps the cops informed about the death count. Though Kersey says that he stopped his mugger slayings, Shriker releases Paul to go after Fraker. Paul moves into Charley's apartment in a decaying building in the middle of a bombed-out gang war zone.
Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987)
Kersey had largely retired from slaying muggers shortly after Death Wish 3. In Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Detective Phil Nozaki mentions mugger shootings downtown two years previous to the events of Death Wish 4, to which Detective Sid Reiner responds by saying that "the vigilante retired years ago". Kersey kept regular residence in Los Angeles, regardless of his breaking off his mugger slayings. Paul Kersey is back in Los Angeles, and is dating reporter Karen Sheldon, who has a teenage daughter named Erica. While Erica is at an arcade with her boyfriend, Randy, she dies of a crack cocaine overdose, setting the scene for a departure from the series' focus on sexual assault by instead putting drug abuse center stage. Later, Randy goes back to the arcade with Kersey following him. Randy confronts Jo-Jo Ross, the dealer that Erica got the crack from. Randy tells Jo-Jo that he is going to the police, but Jo-Jo kills him to keep him quiet. Kersey shows up and shoots Jo-Jo with a .380 Walther PPK pistol, and watches him land on the roof of the bumper-car ride, where he is electrocuted. Next, Paul gets a note and a phone call from a publisher named Nathan White, who tells him that he knows about the death of Jo-Jo. Nathan explains to Kersey that his daughter had died of an overdose, so he wants to hire Kersey to wipe out the drug trade in L.A. – and in particular to target Ed Zacharias and the Romero Brothers Jack and Tony, rival drug kingpins who are the city's two main drug suppliers.
Death Wish V: The Face of Death (1994)
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