The new trailer for “Expend4bles” begins with a voice reading out some tweets from people begging for this fourth installment to be R-rated, which the trailer then, of course, delivers abundantly: gore, gore, beheadings, the implications of sex and the usual ultra-violence is the order of the day.
You can’t say Lionsgate hasn’t learned its lesson from last time.
In an effort to win over a younger audience, the third Sylvester Stallone/Jason Statham “Expendables” movie was edited into a PG-13. The title turned off the older fans who might otherwise have put in the effort, and the kids had no interest in seeing their parents’ favorite action heroes save the day. In August 2014, the young people chose “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”
‘Expendables 3’ only made $215 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million. That was well below the $288 million total of the 2010 original and the $315 million figure for the 2012 sequel.
Nine years later, Lionsgate has another episode. Statham gets top billing, and Stallone – aside from second billing – may play a smaller role. Megan Fox joins 14 years after ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ and ‘Jennifer’s Body’ made her a world-famous sex symbol. It may be just in time to trust in the generations that will regain her status as a woman wronged by the press.
Meanwhile, franchise veterans Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture are joined by franchise newcomers Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran and Andy Garcia. Those who left ‘Furious 7’ mourning the lack of confrontation between Statham and Jaa can have their wish granted.
There are no signs of the deluge of big stars that emerged during the first three, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, Antonio Banderas, Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes.
Fair or not, “Expend4bles” is an example of how even a commercial failure doesn’t always spell the end of a franchise. No franchise can die if studios and shareholders want IP and well-known properties anyway. “The Expendables” was a franchise that barely did its job a decade ago. That’s when the idea of veteran action stars all appearing in the same movie was a unique idea. It was also just before streaming began to pull ordinary moviegoers out of the cinema.
The first three films evoked nostalgia for the action shows of the 1980s, such as ‘Rambo: First Blood Part II’, ‘Commando’ and ‘Invasion USA’. This sequel will also flirt with evoking nostalgia for its former early 2010s glory. “Expend4bles,” directed by Scott Waugh, opens in theaters worldwide on September 22.
The post ‘Expend4bles’ Red-Band Trailer Delivers R-Rated Blood And Guts appeared first on TheWrap.
