Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Keanu Reeves, Jason Statham has the charisma, physicality, and likability to lead not just action movies, but action franchises. They don’t always take off, e.g. Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre or The Italian Job (though it’s a mystery why that never received a follow-up), but it’s a testament to his star power that more often than not they do. What follows is every franchise in which Statham has played a part, whether he was the lead, a supporting player, or a supporting player turned lead. Some of these have yet to conclude, others have, and more still seem to be in a sort of limbo.
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Not to mention, in time, this list could be expanded, as The Beekeeper is getting a sequel and A Working Man certainly seems as though it was setting the stage for more. The only rule was that Statham was in more than one installment of the franchise, which means Death Race, which has received a few Statham-free direct to video sequels, did not qualify.
6) The Mechanic
While The Mechanic is an underrated, relatively early Statham leading-man vehicle, its sequel really tanked this franchise’s ability to rank higher. However, while Mechanic: Resurrection is a forgettable actioner with one great set piece (the skyscraper pool) at best, it cleaned up overseas, resulting in it tripling its $40-million price tag.
Neither film is particularly fun, but for different reasons. The first one is more of a thoughtful piece with a few action sequences strewn throughout — it’s the story of a mentorship. The second film, however, has very little thoughtful or thought-provoking material throughout its entirety, and is so tonally different from its predecessor that The Mechanic barely feels like a franchise at all.
Stream The Mechanic on Kanopy and Mechanic: Resurrection on HBO Max.
5) Crank
The pair of Crank movies helps illustrate why Statham is quite possibly the best action movie star of all time. Both films are incredibly overwhelming and very seldom anything close to resembling PC, and the central character, Chev Chelios, doesn’t really help them be more palatable for anyone who isn’t already on board with these movies’ very particular, hopped-up tone. Yet, while he’s an unpleasant man, we stick with Chelios. We don’t want him to die, even though he’s doing terrible things and quite obviously has done even worse things in the past.
Are either of the Crank films high art? No. Does Crank: High Voltage take the more troubling elements of the first film and double down on them to the point where even viewers who aren’t usually offended by movies might be offended? Sure. But they were further proof after The Transporter and Transporter 2 that Statham undoubtedly could carry a franchise on basically his back alone.
Stream Crank and Crank: High Voltage with a MovieSphere+ Amazon Channel subscription.
4) The Expendables
As far as this ranking goes, The Expendables was boosted over The Mechanic and Crank based on the strength of its first two movies. It ranked lower than the remaining three because of the weakness of the second two.
In 2010, The Expendables was a pretty substantial deal for action fans. It was the first and only entry of the franchise to cross $100 million at the domestic box office. That kind of figure was pretty much unattainable for a straightforward actioner at that time (and still is). Superhero movies could do it, but it wasn’t a safe bet for an old school throwback guns-blazin’ flick.
At this point, the notion of putting Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the same movie elicits a “what else you got?” reaction. But, the first time out of the gate, it was quite exciting.
Even still, The Expendables 2 showed the franchise functioning at its peak. There was still some silly dialogue, but it remained the right kind of silly. It even brought Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme in on the fun (not to mention it actually had Schwarzenegger and Willis join the fight). And, while everyone brings their A-game to this one, it’s Van Damme who runs away with the movie with his charismatic and genuinely intimidating portrayal of the humorously named villain Vilain.
Unfortunately, if the good will built up by The Expendables 2 was a balloon, The Expendables 3 would be a screwdriver thrown through that balloon. The second film outgrossed the original worldwide (it took a dip of about 20% domestically but made up for that overseas), but then the third entry plummeted.
Specifically, the third film netted less than half domestically of what The Expendables 2 did. This is ironic, because the PG-13 rating was blatantly a priority to get more butts in seats. It had the polar opposite effect: by trying to get new, younger audiences hooked on ’80s action stars many of them probably had little knowledge of, they alienated those who did turn out for the first two entries (not to mention the headliners’ earlier films from previous decades). The Expendables 3‘s taming down will always be one of the more baffling studio decisions.
By the time Expend4bles came out, it was too late. The audience for the franchise felt burned by the tameness of the previous entry and avoided it like the plague. Well, the franchise-low reviews didn’t help. And those reviews were correct because, while The Expendables 3 is fully forgettable, Expend4bles is a full-on mess. It was unfortunate that this was the one that had Statham move from second-billed to first-billed (swapping places with Stallone), but that is indicative of the fact that even the biggest action stars of the ’80s and ’90s have fully accepted Statham as their successor.
Stream The Expendables, The Expendables 2, and The Expendables 3 on Peacock and Expend4bles on Starz.
3) The Meg
The Meg and Meg 2: The Trench are a pair of very fun late summer movies that could have pulled an Expendables 3 and suffered due to their PG-13 ratings. Instead, they manage to function fairly well throughout.
It’s a little odd to see a bloodless shark movie, but if viewed through the lens of it being a kaiju movie, that direction works. It also makes a bit more sense why they went for a PG-13 here than it did with Expendables. Monster movies hadn’t really been all that reliable at the box office since 1997’s Anaconda and the like. And, even then, they were more hit or miss. This was a shark movie with a budget upwards of $178 million. It absolutely could not have an R rating.
The gamble paid off, and The Meg was a surprise hit in summer 2018, crossing $500 million worldwide. Meg 2: The Trench “only” made $397.8 million against a budget of $139 million, but that’s still more than enough to get a third film off the ground.
However, there doesn’t seem to be much momentum on a third film, which is unfortunate, because while the first sequel received far worse reviews than its predecessor, it’s still a good bit of monster movie survival action fun. Its narrative is a little less streamlined than The Meg, but it’s not an awful movie. And, just like with the first film, it proves that Statham is the one man in Hollywood who can make us believe his character can tangle with a Megalodon and walk away while the Megalodon swims off its wounds.
Stream The Meg and Meg 2: The Trench on HBO Max.
2) Fast & Furious
Jason Statham’s Deckard Shaw changed the Fast & Furious saga several ways, several times. There wasn’t really a big bad in the franchise until the sixth film, and even then, he wasn’t revealed to exist until the final moments. But, in those final moments, when Statham is introduced as that big bad, we believe he can be the big bad who could take on a whole family of NOS-loving family members.
After making his true debut in Furious 7, Statham’s character then again altered the franchise by essentially becoming an extended member of the family. Even though he was playing a straightforward villain, the audience fell in love with Deckard, and the series didn’t seem as though it would feel right were Statham to enter and then leave like villains of entries past. Over time, the character has been expanded to be something of an anti-hero, and it works.
Stream Fast & Furious 6 on tru TV, Furious 7 on fuboTV, F9 on Prime Video for free with ads, Fast X on Starz, and rent The Fate of the Furious and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw on Amazon Video.
1) The Transporter
The Transporter isn’t just one of the best Statham action movies, it’s also the most important entry in his filmography period. Prior to the original 2002 film, he had only been present in supporting roles. Specifically, in the Guy Ritchie films Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars, and The One. This was the film industry’s test of him as a leading man and he knocked it out of the park.
What’s great about The Transporter is that it shows two sides to Statham’s talent. One, its fluid fist-fight action sequences are as ably performed as they are well-choreographed. He proves here that he can make the audience believe that, in a fight between just him and five people, he’d be the only one who walks away. Two, it shows in his scenes with Shu Qi’s Lai Kwai that he has actual range as an actor, which cannot be said of quite a few of his A-list action star peers of yesteryear. Admittedly, Transporter 2 and Transporter 3 are not as solid, but they continue to display both of those aforementioned and crucial strengths. And, fun fact, it’s widely speculated that his cameo in Collateral (released between the first two films) as “Airport Man” is in fact him reprising his role of Frank Martin.
Stream The Transporter and Transporter 2 on Hulu and rent Transporter 3 on Amazon Video.
What are your favorite Jason Statham franchises? Let us know in the comments below!
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