Actor Sylvester Stallone is back on the big screens with the fourth installment of his blockbuster action series The Expendables. The series was noted for its Avengers-style team-up of classic action stars such as Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Willis.
The latest film Expend4bles adds a few new members to the team of mercenaries, which includes Megan Fox, Curtis Jackson a.k.a 50 Cent, and Tony Jaa. However, two actors, who were part of the classic lineup chose not to return for the fourth series. Terry Crews and Jet Li bid goodbye to the franchise after the third installment and have seemingly dodged a bullet as the film gets critically panned.
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Why Did Terry Crews And Jet Li Leave The Expendables Franchise?
Beginning in 2010, Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables franchise became a profitable and beloved series due to its old-school charm and no-holds-barred action. The film series was known for featuring classic action stars from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s such as Stallone, Jason Statham, Jean Claude Van Damme, Mel Gibson, and Harrison Ford. The franchise has totally earned over $800 million globally at the box office.
Despite its success and legacy, two stars of the franchise chose to exit the series due to various reasons. Terry Crews, who plays Hale Ceaser in the films and is featured in three of the four films chose not to return for Expend4bles due to producer Avi Lerner. In 2018, Crews accused talent manager Adam Venit of sexual assault and filed a lawsuit against him.
During his testimony to a senate committee in favor of the Sexual Assault Survivor’s Bill of Rights (via Mashable), Terry Crews reportedly mentioned that he exited the action franchise as he was pressured by Lerner to drop his lawsuit against Venit. Crews stated,
“I’d done three movies called The Expendables with Sylvester Stallone. The producer of that film called my manager and asked him to drop my case in order for me to be in the fourth installment of the movie. And if I didn’t, there would be trouble…Simply because this same producer is under his own sexual assault investigation. And, you know, abusers protect abusers…This was one thing I had to decide whether I was going to draw the line on: Am I going to be a part of this, or am I going to take a stand? And there are projects I had to turn down.”
Jet Li, on the other hand, started fading out of the franchise in earlier entries. While the action star was a lead in the first installment, he only appeared in the opening action set-piece of The Expandables 2, before parachuting out of a plane right after. He had an even smaller role in The Expendables 3, where he showed up in the finale. No reasons have been revealed for the star’s exit from the fourth film, but he seems to have made a great decision as Expend4bles is said to be the worst of the series.
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Critical Responses To Expend4bles
The fourth film of the action franchise Expend4bles released on September 22 to extremely negative reviews with many calling it the weakest of the series. Critics reportedly pointed out the weak screenplay, disappointing action, and lack of charm that defined the series.
The film is directed by Scott Waugh, who also directed this year’s other action disaster Hidden Strike which starred John Cena and Jackie Chan. The screenplay of Expend4bles, which was written by Kurt Wimmer, Tad Daggerheart, and Max Adams received much of the critical onslaught. Frank Scheck wrote in his review featured in The Hollywood Reporter,
“Expend4bles…betrays its viewers with an early fake-out and other plot twists so annoyingly obvious that they could only have been devised by a bad screenwriter. Or in this case, three bad screenwriters.”
Many considered the film to be the lowest point in the franchise, despite The Expandables 3 being utterly disappointing. Critics pointed out that it was time for the franchise to be put to bed permanently as the charm of the original trilogy was not working anymore. Simon Thompson wrote in his review for IGN,
“There is no pleasure taken in saying this once highly entertaining action franchise is well past its AARPrime. It would have been great to have rounded the series off with a fifth entry, but after this flat and uninspired effort, the franchise doesn’t deserve that last hoorah.”
While there has been no mention of a fifth entry into the franchise, it depends on how well the fourth film would fare at the box office. The film is projected to gross about $15-17 million in its opening weekend and has collected $10 million at the Chinese box office. The film has a production budget of $100 million.
Sources: IGN, Mashable, The Hollywood Reporter
