The Expendables 4 is finally coming to theaters, with a fall 2023 release date. Here’s everything we know about the sequel.
While critics may not love them, audiences love the adventures of Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross, Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, and the rest of the gang. While The Expendables 4 recently got set for a September 22, 2023 release date, no one seems to know much about the film itself, so we figured we’d try to assemble everything we know about the fourth movie in the Expendables series.
The Release Date
The fourth film, created and produced by Millennium Media and Campbell Grobman Films, as well as being distributed by Lionsgate, has been through quite a bit of development hell over the past decade. As previously stated, the last movie was released in 2014 with the sequel being released in 2012 and the original premiering back in 2010. Following this pattern, the fourth movie should have arrived nearly seven years ago.
Luckily, despite the behind-the-scenes drama (as well as the Covid-pandemic) that caused the film to be pushed back several times, the studio finally announced that the fourth film will be releasing in the United States on September 22 of this year. While fans can absolutely look forward to seeing the new film, it should be noted that the three prior movies all premiered in August, so don’t be surprised if the studio makes a one-month jump-up for the release date to coincide with how the other three were released (it all depends on how post-production goes).
The Plot
At this time, audiences have been given shockingly little as to what the plot of the fourth movie will be. The only concrete piece of information fans have gotten is from the movie’s IMDb page where it states: The Expendables will square up against an arms dealer who commands the might of a massive army.
For an action film, this plot description might seem pretty generic. But luckily, that might actually be a good thing. Just as all superhero movies could be broken down to have a similar plot description, as well as all comedies or romantic movies, so too can action movies. So, giving a generic plot description that doesn’t give a whole lot away about the plot of the movie should actually serve the film much better, as it will allow further suspense among audiences since they won’t already know what to expect.
The Cast
Despite some off-screen complications since the last film, Sylvester Stallone will be reprising his main role as Barney Ross. He will be joined by actors Jason Statham (Lee Christmas), Dolph Lundgren (Gunner Jensen), and Randy Couture (Toll Road) who will all be reprising their roles from the prior three films.
New members of the cast include names such as Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Eddie Hall, Iko Uwais, and Andy Garcia, all of whom have been cast in undisclosed roles.
Even though Stallone, Statham, Lundgren, and Couture will be returning to the franchise, there hasn’t been any word on whether or not any of the other core members of The Expendables will be returning for the fourth outing, such as Jet Li as Yin Yang, Terry Crews as Hale Caesar, or Arnold Schwarzenegger as Trent “Trench” Mauser.
The Trailer
While no trailer has been revealed yet, the audience at CinemaCon in 2022 did get to see a little bit of footage, which you can read about here. Luckily, the title they gave, Expend4bles, didn’t seem to stick.
Everything Else
New Director, New Writers – one of the biggest takeaways from the fourth film is that it will have a new director and new writers at the helm. The original movie was directed by Stallone and written by David Callaham; the second was directed by Simon West, written by Richard Wenk, and a story by Ken Kauffman and David Agosto; the third followed being directed by Patrick Hughes and was written by Katrin Benedikt and Creighton Rothenberger. It’s also worth noting that Stallone had a hand in the writing or story for all three of these films.
But now, for the fourth outing, the film will be directed by Scott Waugh and written by Max Adams and Spenser Cohen, meaning that this will be the first film in the franchise where Stallone will just be an actor and not have any credit as a director or writer.
Who Is Iko Uwais Playing? – while details about the plot are still being kept under wraps, it has been confirmed that one of the new cast members, Iko Uwais, will be portraying the antagonist of the movie. While not much is known about the character, it can be assumed that Uwais will be playing the “arms dealer” mentioned in the plot description from IMDb. Just from that information alone, we know that Uwais will have a massive army at his disposal and that The Expendables will be squaring off against said army in order to stop him.
Is Barney Ross Going to Die? – as stated, Stallone will be returning as the main character of Barney Ross. But also stated, there was a lot of off-screen drama in-between the third and fourth film that eventually caused Stallone to step away from the franchise completely in 2017. Luckily, Stallone’s fellow castmastes came to his aid and advocated for his return, prompting Stallone to do just that back in 2018.
However, since we also stated that this was the first film the Stallone had no hand in directing or writing (combined with his willingness to walk away from the franchise) it might not be the craziest thing to assume that Barney Ross will be given a satisfactory ending in the upcoming movie, allowing the franchise and the studio to move on to new things. Stallone himself has said that the movie is more focused on Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, with him originally even calling it a spin-off.
