Sylvester Stallone Says ‘The Expendables’ Spinoff Shoots This Fall
It’s been seven years since the last Expendables movie, a franchise built by and around Sylvester Stallone to showcase big casts of stars from multiple generations working together and against each other in big, explosive tributes to ’80s action movies. The first film was a legitimate hit, grossing over $100 million in the U.S., and the first sequel made $311 million worldwide. The last sequel, The Expendables 3, wound up making just $210 million and put a halt to the franchise’s forward momentum. (The fact that Stallone was approaching 70 years old, probably didn’t help matters.)
Now Stallone is 75 years old and ... making another Expendables anyway. Instead of a full-on sequel, the next film will apparently be a spinoff. On Instagram, Stallone shared a very elaborate tattoo of his Expendables character, Barney Ross, with a caption that reads “Off to shoot the spinoff of EXPENDABLES in [October].”
He also gave a tentative title for the project: Christmas Story. It’s a winking reference to the actual Christmas movie of the same name, but it also means that the film will focus on Jason Statham’s Expendables character, who is named Lee Christmas. (Most of the characters in Expendables have ridiculous names, including Toll Road, Conrad Stonebanks, Jean Vilain, Yin Yang, and my personal favorite, Hale Caesar.)
This spinoff, if it actually does come together, is one of a variety of Expendables off-shoots that have been teased over the last seven years, including a more straightforward sequel with a bigger portion of the Expendables cast, and an all-female version of the concept that was supposedly to be called The ExpendaBelles. That really is one of the most incredible titles in the history of motion pictures. It’s just a shame it didn’t happen.