As much as he loves sequels, maybe it’s for the best if Sylvester Stallone stays away from that particular arena for a while, because his track record for franchises he played a key part in creating hasn’t been going too well as of late.
EXPEND4BLES is the latest offender, with the fourth installment in the action saga being battered by the worst reviews it’s ever seen, and Sly hasn’t exactly been shy in voicing his displeasure about being exiled from the Rocky universe, either. It was only a few days ago he pretty much laughed off the concept of returning to the world of Rambo, but the producers have other ideas if there’s money to be made.
In an interview with Coming Soon, Kevin King-Templeton and Les Weldon hinted that maybe the iconic ass-kicker isn’t quite as retired as the leading man would have you believe, even if it sounds more like a threat in the face of diminishing returns to have plagued almost all Stallone-fronted IPs.
“The same. Rambo. I mean, there’s several different franchises that we’re on, and we’re thinking about for the future. And as well as new projects. You know, it’s, again, it becomes a matter of if, if there is a demand from the fan base, we’ll be the first ones to jump on there, which is why Expendables is happening again. Sometimes Kevin and I will say, “well, I don’t know if there’s gonna be another.” And then the demand comes up, and people are asking, and asking and asking. Buyers are asking, and that was the case with this. And so we took this very seriously to develop this, you know, so that we would do it right. And yeah. And give them something they wanted.”
Let’s hope Rambo doesn’t come back, because looking at how EXPEND4BLES failed miserably in justifying its existence after a lengthy absence, the last thing Stallone’s supporters want or need is another cynical successor designed solely to cash in on name recognition.