UPDATE: Both Stallone and then Arnie have Quit the Project:
It looks like Sylvester Stallone has walked away from the hit franchise that he created, with the news that he’s quit The Expendables 4.
Stallone was set to bank around $20m for heading up the team for one final big screen adventure, but news broke over the weekend that he won’t now be appearing in the movie. The reason? Stallone and production company Nu Image/Millennium were not agreeing on a director for the film, the screenplay, and ‘certain qualitative elements of the film’.
Stallone, coming off the back of his success with Creed, was reportedly worried too about ‘potentially underwhelming results’ for the new movie. As such, in the end, he’s backed up his bag of machine guns, and walked away from the project. Stallone, don’t forget, wrote and directed the first movie, as well as headlining the film.
Avi Lerner, of Nu Image/Millennium, still thinks there’s a chance Stallone may return, though. “We’ve got disagreements with Sly, but we’ve had them for over a year and a half. Right now, each one has opinion. We agreed on 95% of things, but there are certain things in production we don’t agree on. I don’t think it’s over, but what write whatever you want. In my opinion, it’s not dead”, he told Deadline.
With Sylvester Stallone dropping out of the upcoming fourth “The Expendables” film, it looks like his co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger may be joining him.
Schwarzenegger says he’s not doing the film without Stallone:
“There is no ‘Expendables’ without Sly. I would never do the movie without him, no. I have not seen the script; I don’t even know if there is a script, even though they want to shoot in August again, like they usually do.”
Stallone is reportedly departing the franchise after he and Nu Image/Millennium chief Avi Lerner could not agree on the direction of the new film, including the movie’s director and script. Even if Stallone, who co-wrote the first three films with creator Dave Callaham, comes back around then Arnie isn’t a lock unless his character is done better than the previous film:
“You know, I think the first and second one were terrific. But, the third one, I thought my part was not written well. It was also not playing well in the movie, as far as I was concerned. Maybe other people believed differently. But I didn’t believe that I had any value in the movie. I love the franchise, by the way. I think it’s a spectacular franchise, ‘The Expendables.’ I think that Sly has good ideas, what he wants to do with it, and I think if they write a really good script [in] which my part is very well-developed, I would do it. If not, then I won’t do it.”
No specific dates have been set for the next “The Expendables” film to begin production.
