Taking top billing and producing both of the year’s worst-reviewed blockbuster sequels hands one unfortunate star an unwanted accolade

He might be one of the most enduringly popular action stars of the 21st Century, but it would be fair to say that 2023 has hardly been a banner year in the career of Jason Statham.

Sure, he showed up in box office smash hit Fast X, but that was only for a single scene and the profit margins on Universal’s $714 million-grossing gravity-defying epic were rendered razor thin by a $340 million budget plus additional marketing and distribution costs.

Ironically, hardly anybody watched the best of his four features to release in 2023 after Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre was quietly shuffled onto streaming with barely a marketing campaign to speak of, but Statham’s inconsistent annum has just gotten significantly worse after the review embargo lifted on EXPEND4BLES.

With a current Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of only 13 percent at the time of writing, the sequel that features the bald-headed martial artist taking top billing and producing is already the worst-reviewed big budget follow-up of the year. What did it snatch the crown from, you may ask? Unfortunately, it was Meg 2: The Trench, which saw the bald-headed martial artist taking top billing and executive producing.

The giant shark epic has at least come within touching distance of $400 million in ticket sales, but with EXPEND4BLES tracking for a franchise-low opening weekend having already gotten off to a disappointing start overseas, Statham could be staring a huge flop squarely in the face in what’s proven to be a year to forget given the unwanted accolade to have been hung around his neck.