Kill Half The Expendables

The Expendables 3 was a farce and a low point for the careers of all involved, unless you were some of the chump ‘New Expendables’, half of whose names I have already forgotten.  That movie was soft ass shit, in the words of one of Ed Harris’ men from the movie The Rock.

If they’re ever going to make an Expendables 4, and I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of the franchise, they need a radical change in direction.  Yes, the usual demand for an R rating has to be made.  But they have to go further than that.  They need to kill half the cast.  Maybe even three quarters of the cast.  And they have to do so violently and without mercy.  And I’m not just talking about the ‘New Expendables’ either, because people will expect that anyway.  As a statement of intent, they have to go after our favourites too, basically anyone who’ll agree to appear in the movie and die.

Take them to the fucking slaughterhouse.

Preferably in the opening act too.  Of course, such actions would lead to the same old story of revenge. They’ve done that twice now in the last two movies.  So they should really offer no room for even revenge, but merely survival against some deadly threat.  I was thinking of something along the lines of an old A-Team episode.  I can’t remember which one, but in that series you had an elite team that, in season 3 I believe, is hunted by another group in the same line of business.  Because they stepped on too many toes and somebody recruits the absolute best to put them down once and for all.

So who could play the threat?  Well, it really doesn’t matter, as long as they’re getting the story right.  But how about the person who pitched this idea in the first place?  The Rock.  Here is what he said earlier in the summer, on the question of whether he’d do one of these movies:

I don’t want to be on their team and be buddies with them. Fuck that noise. I want to hunt every single one of them down and tell them to “send your soul to heaven cause your ass is mine.

Of course, The Rock is a very expensive actor and such a role would be almost too similar to his role in the Fast & Furious franchise.  But the story doesn’t have to be identical, and perhaps his fee can be met be corner cutting.  No, not going to some cheap location – but by having Sylvester Stallone quit hogging the lion’s share of the budget.  Stallone commands $15 million for these movies.  He doesn’t need that, not if he cares about quality first, money that he’ll never spend second.  Oh, and to mix things up a little, Arnold would be my ideal candidate for the final fight with The Rock.  That would get people talking.  Another round of Stallone killing someone in God-mode would not.

But even then, if they couldn’t get The Rock, there are other options.  I don’t want to say Steven Seagal, I think… but maybe.  In some capacity, such as Steven Seagal and Jackie Chan, both ruthless villains together commanding one team of badasses.  A force to be reckoned with for once.  To really stir things up. have one of those ‘New Expendables’ survive and be a turncoat/mole or what have you.  A common part of the writing process for professional wrestling, you push someone as a hero and when you’re stunned to find the crowd hates them, you push them as a villain.

That said, I fear we’ll get the exact opposite of all of this.  To me, the good money says that The Expendables franchise will continue, but face major downgrading.  I’ve got a feeling that instead of another big movie, we’re going to see several smaller VOD-sized movies featuring Randy Couture, Glen Powell and Dolph Lundgren.  With a slapstick cameo from Sylvester Stallone.  It makes sense to put the license/namesake to use in some form, even if we don’t want that.

So have they really learned anything, and will they this follow this trajectory?  Who the hell knows, all Stallone does is lie these days.  Even if another movie was filmed next year, we probably won’t know if it’s R until the last minute.  Blood squibs on the set would tell us nothing, since we could reasonably expect that they’d intend to squeeze two cuts out of the movie, like this one.

Maybe it’s better if they kill the whole franchise instead…