Dolph Lundgren is a legendary action star who is mostly known for his role as the antagonistic Russian boxer Ivan Drago in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV. The actor had his breakthrough in playing the role and went on to appear in many action films of the ‘80s such as Masters of the Universe, The Punisher, and Blackjack.
Lundgren reunited with Stallone in the latter’s action franchise The Expendables. Playing the role of the anti-hero Gunner Jensen, Lundgren battled against Jet Li and other Expendables in the first film before redeeming himself. He returned to the franchise in all of the sequels. He recently spoke about how he predicted the outcome of the recent installment Expend4bles.
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Dolph Lundgren On Why Expendables 4 Flopped
Actor Dolph Lundgren was one of the few action stars to return to the fourth film of The Expendables franchise after the disappointing third film. The third entry underperformed at the box office leading to a fourth film being delayed indefinitely. However, lead star and creator Sylvester Stallone later stated that a fourth film much more similar to the first two entries was in development.
After more drama behind the scenes, with Stallone leaving the series at one point, the fourth film was finally released in 2023 to negative reviews and disastrous box office collections. Lundgren spoke about Expend4bles’ failure in an interview with ScreenRant,
“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.”
Lundgren also mentioned that the film suffered from Sylvester Stallone not being involved in the scripting stage. The film was written by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerhart, and Max Adams, with the film being the first in the franchise without Stallone receiving a screenplay credit. Lundgren revealed,
“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.”
The Expend4bles garnered mostly negative reviews and earned only $51 million at the box office. The film also suffered from being released right during the SAG-AFTRA strikes, which did not allow the stars of the film to promote it.
Also read: Actor Who Put Sylvester Stallone in ICU With a Single Punch Wants to be in Expendables 5
Reasons For The Failure Of Expendables 4
With the fourth installment of The Expendables failing at the box office, the Sylvester Stallone starrer might just be done for good. The film has one of the worst opening weekends and earned a total of $51 million against a $100 million budget for the fourquel. Another fourquel that was released this year by Lionsgate, John Wick 4, also had the same budget but ended up earning $440 million at the box office.
While Dolph Lundgren chalks up one of the reasons to be Stallone’s lack of involvement with the script, the Expendables franchise has never been a critical darling for it to last this long. Many believed that one of the biggest reasons for the film’s flop was its lackluster direction and terrible CGI work. Patrick Hughes was supposed to direct the film but was reportedly replaced by Scott Waugh one month before reproduction began.
The film also suffered from a lack of interest in the franchise as there was a nine-year gap between The Expendables 3 and the latest film. Dolph Lundgren mentioned that the franchise strayed away from its concentration on the team and that was one of the reasons for its failure. He said,
“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 it go that way…And I’m sure it would have done better, but it’s too bad. I was disappointed.”
The lack of involvement from previous stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Terry Crews, and Bruce Willis was also a huge factor in its failure.
