Worst start to the Expendables franchise: Why was the fourth film unstoppable only in criticism?

By: Tetiana Honcharenko | 25.09.2023, 15:39
Worst start to the Expendables franchise: Why was the fourth film unstoppable only in criticism?

The Expendables 4 managed to earn just over $8 million in its first weekend, making it safe to say that the franchise has exhausted itself.

Here's What We Know

The idea of Sylvester Stallone to collect all the celebrities of the action genre in one film, for a long time caused a stir among the audience. This brought the film good box office receipts and kept the franchise afloat, despite numerous negative reviews.

The results of the fourth part are far from the indicators of the previous films in the series. For the first weekend, the picture earned only $8.3 million. The amount of less than 9 million in the first days of distribution already indicates serious problems, even if not compared to the previous parts of the franchise.

The first Expendables film was released in 2010 and started with $34.8 million. The second instalment started with $28.5 million in 2012, and "Expendables 3" earned $15.8 million in its first weekend just two years later. With roughly the same production costs, "Expendables 4" barely managed to gross even half that amount, even judging by the franchise's worst box office performance.

But the one who is truly unstoppable and hasn't ruled out the possibility of a fifth instalment is the film's director Scott Waugh.

"First of all? Hell yes. I'd come back for a five.I had a blast. I considered it an honor to direct this kind of franchise." Waugh said in an interview with ComicBook

While it's too early to talk about the production of "The Expendables 5", you can watch the fourth part in cinemas.