The Expendables 4 AKA Expend4bles is being released in theaters next week, and it will see 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. In honor of the franchise’s fourth installment, ComicBook.com had the chance to ask Stunt Coordinator Alan Ng questions about the film. Ng spoke about working with the film’s stacked cast and talked about bringing a Hong Kong influence into the franchise. We asked Ng if he went back and watched the first three Expendables films to prepare for the gig, and it turns out he actually went the extra mile.
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“Yeah, we watched all the previous Expendables and a lot of the films starring the other actors, so that we could see what they haven’t done before and what type of style would suit them best,” Ng shared via a translator. Considering the number of action stars featured in the Expendables franchise, that is a whole lot of research.
When asked if there’s any moment he’s particularly proud of in Expend4bles, Ng revealed, “It would have to be Jason and Iko’s fight scene … We only had a day and a half to film Jason and Iko’s fight scene. Jason and Iko did it in the short time frame, they were incredible and did the fights themselves. They are real action stars.” He added, “We would have loved to have more fight scenes for Iko, but it’s all down to the script and character.”
Expendables Almost Got a Women-Led Spinoff:
Millennium Films’ Jeffrey Greenstein had a chat with The Holywood Reporter last year and was asked if making action movies that star women such as Red Sonja, Till Death, and The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard was a “strategic shift.” In his response, he revealed the studio has been trying to develop a new version of The Expendables.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a shift, at least from our perspective. Maybe it’s more that the rest of the world is now thinking about other stories to tell. With The Hitman’s Bodyguard, Salma’s [Hayek] character was just so much fun, it made sense to build the second film around her,” Greenstein explained. “We also like working with the same people, so we did Till Death with Megan [Fox] and she’s in the new Expendables. It’s really just about working with talented people. But I will say something: We’d been trying to develop The Expendables, a female version of The Expendables, but my problem with that project was always trying to find a way to justify why we’d have a woman team. Instead of trying to explain that, why not just have women on the regular team and [they’re] badass? Instead of having to explain why a women character got there and all that, you just do what you’d do with a man: show them kicking ass.”
Expend4bles hits theaters on September 22nd.
