The Expendables is an American ensemble action thriller franchise conceived by David Callaham, spanning a film series, written by Sylvester Stallone and additional media. The films star an ensemble cast, notably Stallone and Jason Statham, and are produced by Avi Lerner and Kevin King-Templeton.
Casting[edit]
Over the years, multiple actors reported interest or claimed they were approached to star in a fourth installment. In March 2014, Pierce Brosnan stated that he had agreed with producer Avi Lerner to star in a fourth installment.[25] By April of the same year, Sylvester Stallone revealed his first choice for the villain was Jack Nicholson, while mentioning his interest in convincing Clint Eastwood to join the production.[26][27] According to Jackie Chan, he was approached to star in the film by Stallone but was unsure about having limited screen time in an ensemble film, which is why he had turned down roles in the previous two entries.[28] Dwayne Johnson publicly expressed interest to play a villainous character in a new installment during a 2014 Q&A[29] and reiterated his interest to join the series in 2022.[30] In May 2015, Hulk Hogan claimed that he was in talks with Stallone to play the film’s main villain.[13]
In June 2020, Jean-Claude Van Damme expressed interest in returning to the franchise, publicly pitching his idea of playing Claude Vilain, the brother to his villain character, Jean Vilain, from The Expendables 2.[31] Despite discontent with how his character was handled in The Expendables 3, Arnold Schwarzenegger proclaimed he was interested in returning to the series if he liked the script.[32] However; on May 29, 2023, Schwarzenegger confirmed that he would not be returning to the franchise, citing a general disinterest.[33] While he was not included in the fourth movie, Kellan Lutz proclaimed interest to return in a fifth installment in an Instagram post.[34] On the other hand, Terry Crews, who had starred in all previous films, refused to appear in any new entries after claiming he was sexually assaulted by Stallone’s agent, Adam Venit, alleging he was pressured by producer Avi Lerner to drop the case if he wanted to stay in the series.[35]
However, none of the actors mentioned above were subsequently cast, and the cast was announced to include returning stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Randy Couture, and Dolph Lundgren, while new cast members were revealed to be Eddie Hall, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Andy García, Sheila Shah, Jacob Scipio and Levy Tran,[4][12] with Iko Uwais playing the villain.[9]