Sylvester Stallone‘s Expendables franchise is all but toast. Domestically for sure. The Expendables 3 flopped this weekend with a lousy $16.2 million haul, or about $10 million shy of expectations. All three Expendables films have been B-movie “product,” made with a smug and cynical attitude. “Yo! We’re just farting around here and the public is in on the joke so fuck it, y’know?…we’re all getting well paid and the chumps are lining up so why fuck with the formula?” The Expendables (’10) cost $80 million to make and it earned $241 million worldwide with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 41%. The Expendables 2 (’12) cost $100 million to produce with a worldwide gross of $311 million and a 65% Rotten Tomatoes score…getting good at this! The Expendables 3 cost $90 million but was heavily pirated (over 5 million downloads) and the word must have gotten around that it’s a piece of shit. It takes the public years to catch on. With very few exceptions (Rocky, First Blood, Copland) Stallone has doggedly starred in or directed mediocre films. That’s what he does. He’s in it for the money and the fine cigars. He had a major-league franchise that had a potential to be something more but he blew it. What’s he gonna do, create another popular franchise? He’s done.
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