The Expendables 4 continues to be a disappointment at the box office, with the film’s big second weekend drop solidifying its status as a bomb. Directed by Scott Waugh, the latest installment in the action franchise sees the eponymous team of mercenaries setting out to stop World War III. After releasing to some of the franchise’s worst-ever reviews from critics, The Expendables 4 flopped in its opening weekend, pulling in just over $8 million on a budget of $100 million.
Now, per The Numbers, The Expendables 4‘s box office woes are only getting worse, with the sequel suffering a 69% drop in its second weekend and plummeting to ninth place overall. The movie pulled in only $2.5 million in its second weekend, bringing its worldwide total to a disappointing $13.3 million and casting further doubt that the franchise will be continuing.
Why The Expendables 4 Flopped At The Box Office
Although none of the installments have proven especially popular with critics, the Expendables franchise has been a fairly reliable draw for audiences. Things started to falter in 2014 with The Expendables 3, a movie that ditched the R rating of the previous two entries in an effort to appeal to a wider audience. This decision ultimately had the opposite effect, and the movie earned only $214.7 million worldwide, which, at the time, marked a new franchise low.
The poor reception to Expendables 3 seems to have killed off a lot of enthusiasm for the franchise, not to mention the fact that the movie was released nearly 10 years ago. 10 years, evidently, is plenty of time for interest to wane and for audiences to move on. That general decline in interest in the franchise is also compounded by the fact that The Expendables 4‘s cast is missing a number of the heavy-hitters that made earlier movies so much fun.
With Sylvester Stallone in a reduced role and with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Terry Crews, and Chuck Norris sitting the new film out, The Expendables 4 was missing the action star pedigree that made previous installments so appealing. These factors, combined with pretty abysmal reviews right out of the gate, have resulted in The Expendables 4 being a major disappointment, and it’s looking unlikely that the film’s situation is going to improve in the weeks ahead.
