Expendables 4 Producer Reveals Lessons Learned From Expendables 3

The fourth Expendables is now playing in theaters, and it features the return of Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture in addition to franchise newcomers Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy Garcia, and Iko Uwais. The movie returns to the Rated R format after the third installment received some backlash for being PG-13. In fact, ComicBook.com recently spoke with Expend4bles producer Les Weldon, who explained what lessons they learned from The Expendables 3.

“The biggest lesson is, well, there’s actually probably two. And the first one is that you have to stay true to your audience. And I think on the third one, maybe we were a little bit wayward, or at least we sort of wanted to try something, ‘Hey, let’s give a wider audience a taste of expendables and give it a PG 13.’ And I think some people were a little bit thrown by that and maybe a little disappointed. I don’t know. I mean, I think the movie is still in that spirit, but for an Expendables film, the audience knows what they want. They want to know hardcore action. They want to feel those bullets. They want to feel the heat of the explosions on their face, even though they’re just watching the film. They want to feel the punches and the knife throws and just they want to feel the carnage basically. And we shouldn’t second guess the audience. We shouldn’t try to fresh. That’s not the way to freshen up a franchise.”

Weldon continued, “And the second thing is that, which goes along with this and the audience, is you need to stay true to a story. And you can’t fit square pegs in the round holes. We can’t be bringing these big, big stars and just have ’em in for a cameo and expect that to either affect the story or affect any of the other guys or gals in the franchise. And so for this one, we were focusing on story. We were trying to get the best possible story with the best possible characters. And then we went after the actors and the actors came in, and they all wanted to do it. And what happens then? It becomes very organic. You suddenly don’t get a big actor kind of scowling at Jason in a cameo, or now you get that sexy romp with Jason and Megan … now here’s a strong woman going tête-à-tête with our leads.”

“And it just works so much better when you focus it that way,” Weldon explained. “And we owed that to the fans. We owed them a good story. We owed them good characters. Any character that came in, if you notice in this film, has meaningful interactions with other characters, whether it be Randy and 50 or Andy Garcia. It’s part of the fabric of this film.”

How Expedn4bles Ties Into The Expendables 3:

In The Expendables 3, Antonio Banderas played the extremely talkative Galgo, and fans of the franchise might be surprised to learn that the fourth film features Jacob Scipio as Galgo’s son. ComicBook.com recently spoke with director Scott Waugh, and we asked about the new installment’s connection to the third film.

“Look, actor availability is always difficult when you have this many celebrities,” Waugh explained. “So that character was originally written for Antonio, but Antonio’s availability didn’t allow him to be in the movie. So I didn’t want to get rid of that dialogue and that character because it was so quintessential to the comedic moments. And so we came up with this idea of, ‘What about if it’s his son?’”

He continued, “And so we could still have the same vibe as Antonio, but a little bit different. He is not replicating Antonio. So that’s when Jacob Scipio came in and really kind of brought that character to life. And I think he does a great job in the movie.” 

Expedn4bles is now playing in theaters.