After becoming one of 2023’s biggest critical and commercial failures, Dolph Lundgren explains why The Expendables 4 failed. The fourth movie in the Sylvester Stallone-led franchise endured a lengthy development cycle, during which he would again pass off the directorial reins initially to the third movie’s director, Patrick Hughes, before Scott Waugh took over. Finally hitting theaters nearly a decade after its predecessor, the movie proved a major disaster, potentially killing off any future plans.
While speaking with Screen Rant for his new action-thriller Wanted Man, Lundgren was asked about the reactions to The Expendables 4. After initially admitting a feeling of disappointment for how the movie performed, the star candidly shared many of the reasons why he felt the sequel failed, including the movie’s lackluster script, Stallone’s limited involvement and the lack of proper promotion from the cast due to the SAG-AFTRA strikes occurring at the time of its release. Check out what Lundgren said below:
Yeah, that’s a good question. I didn’t read the reviews, because I kind of knew what they were gonna say. That project had issues from the beginning, and it usually starts with the script, it really didn’t really have a good script. I’m not playing the lead, so it’s hard for me to weigh in on some of those issues, but I know Stallone wasn’t involved, like he usually is. He just played a character in it, and when he’s in charge, the quality is going to be pretty good, it doesn’t drop below a certain level. But he wasn’t involved, so I think the problem was with the script, and then the director was replaced, like, a month before shooting.
So between those two things — it’s hard to make a really good movie, and I also think that the originals, the first two especially, it was kind of about the team. It was about a team effort, and some of that got lost, so I was sad to see go that way. Because 50 was in it, he was great, and Megan Fox, they were all good assets. Also, the picture opened during the strike, which wasn’t very clever, so they couldn’t do any publicity. If you would have had a big star-studded premiere with Megan and 50 and Stallone and Statham, and the rest of them, myself, Andy Garcia, there would have been more eyeballs on it. And I’m sure it would have done better, but it’s too bad. I was disappointed.
Did The Expendables 4 Kill The Franchise?
Much of Lundgren’s criticisms for The Expendables 4 line up with how critics felt about the movie, particularly Stallone’s limited screen time in the sequel, with reviews lamenting the lack of the franchise’s original star and co-writer instead seemingly passing the torch to Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas. Anticipation for the movie ahead of its release was also relatively muted as it was confirmed most of the original cast would not be back for it, including Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jet Li. With the creative team behind the movie also having a mostly negative streak with critics and a lengthy development process typically resulting in poor results, odds were largely against Expendables 4 performing well.
Given The Expendables 4 not only proved to be the worst performing installment in the franchise, but also a box office bomb on its own, only grossing a reported $51.1 million worldwide against its $100 million production budget, the franchise’s future seems very doubtful. A female-led spinoff entitled The Expendabelles was in development for quite some time before finally being shelved by Millennium Films, with the studio instead pushing for more female characters to be integrated into the mainline movies. An Expendables TV show has also been in the works for over a decade, with the studio confirming in late 2022 that it was still in development, though no update was given as to the timeline for which it may release.
While no official plans have been confirmed for a fifth movie, Lundgren did indicate to Screen Rant that Stallone is in the process of developing an Expendables 5 script. Should the three-time Oscar nominee indeed be leading the charge on the development of the sequel, it could be a promising sign that some of the mistakes from The Expendables 4 are being taken to heart in keeping the franchise alive going forward.
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The Expendables 4 is the fourth entry in the action legacy-hero franchise, bringing together famous action-hero stars from the past and present to battle international terrorist threats. This fourth entry sees the mercenary group dragged into a catastrophic nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia, forcing them to intervene.
- Release Date
- September 22, 2023
- Director
- Scott Waugh
- Cast
- Dolph Lundgren , Randy Couture , Eddie Hall , Sylvester Stallone , Levy Tran , Iko Uwais , tony jaa , Sheila Shah , Jacob Scipio , Jason Statham , Andy Garcia , Megan Fox , 50 Cent
- Runtime
- 103 Minutes
- Genres
- Thriller , Action , Adventure
- Writers
- Spenser Cohen , John Joseph Connolly , Max Adams
- Budget
- $100 million
- Studio(s)
- Millennium Media , Campbell Grobman Films
- Distributor(s)
- Lionsgate
- prequel(s)
- The Expendables , The Expendables 2 , The Expendables 3
- Franchise(s)
- The Expendables
