Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables 4 is creating headlines, and not for good reason. The star-studded movie with an overwhelming $100 million production budget is potentially going to become the series’ most epic failure. Not only is it expected to be the lowest-grossing movie of the franchise but it seems it might be creating some new lows at the box office.
Expendables 4’s box-office opening is lower than some of the lowest opening movies of this year, which include two of the popular DC Universe’s latest movies, Shazam! Fury of Gods and Blue Beetle.
Expendables 4 Worse Than Shazam 2 And Blue Beetle At The Box Office
It has been a year full of surprises for the box office, from some of the biggest movies of the century to some of the lowest-growing movies, it has witnessed it all this year. Things have been particularly worse for one of the biggest Hollywood franchises, the DCEU. Starting from The Flash to its recently released Blue Beetle, DC’s movies have been in the limelight for creating new lows in cinematic history.
DCEU’s Shazam 2 opened up at just $30 million at the box office as per Variety, making it one of the lowest-ever openings for any DC movie. Furthermore, it is also DC’s lowest-earning movie ever. Its miserable box office failure has been a combination of poor marketing, James Gunn‘s decision to reboot DC, disappointing characters and development, and a bland storyline.
Blue Beetle opened at $43.4 million worldwide as per The Direct, grossing only about $18 million in its first five days at the box office. The lack of marketing, absence of a stellar cast, huge competition, and negative reaction from fans contributed massively to its box-office failure, although it remains one of DC’s better-reviewed movies.
Meanwhile, Sylvester Stallone‘s Expendables 4, has massively misfired with its box-office debut equal to just $8.3 million in its opening weekend (as per The Hollywood Reporter) and earning just $3.2 million on its opening day (Variety). Its box office performance marks the lowest-ever opening in the Expendables franchise and has also earned some of the worst critical reviews compared to its predecessors.
Why Is Expendables 4 A Potential Massive Flop?
Shazam 2 failed because of its bland storyline and Blue Beelte due to all the negative remarks it received even before its release, but a common cause was a lack of adequate marketing and the much controversial DC reboot which made fans naturally aversive to the movies. Furthermore seeing the track record of some of DC’s early releases like The Flash and Black Adam, the majority opinion was already set against them.
However, for Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables 4, the movie turned out to be the worst one in the franchise. Despite the stellar cast containing Stallone, Jason Statham, and Dolph Lundgren, the absence of Arnold Schwarzenegger was a major cause for it was the ‘Sly-Arnie’ relationship that drew fans in the first place.
Furthermore, a highly predictable plot, a pg13 rating, absence of any ‘enjoyable’ action scenes, bad direction, and an overall uninteresting and very cliche storyline seem to be the contributing factors for the movie’s potential critical failure at the box office and it might be unable to recover its massive $100 million budget.
Expendables 4 is in theatres now.
