After three films in the Expendables franchise, things seem to have gone fairly quiet on that front. While we wait to hear about the inevitable Expendables 4 or the even more inevitable Expendables reboot, Sylvester Stallone has decided there's one thing that he absolutely needs to get off his chest. He is not now, nor does he ever plan to be, involved in an all-female cast Expendables movie. Well, thank god he cleared that up.
In one of the more oddly timed public denials in recent memory, Deadline is reporting that Sylvester Stallone "wants it known" that he is not, in any way, involved in an Expendables movie with an all-female cast. The statement seems a little strange, as, until we read this, we had honestly forgotten that there was ever talk about such a film. It's been a couple of years since we heard anything at all about The Expendabelles, as it was being referred to, and we just sort of assumed that project had fallen into development hell with the rest of the hair-brained ideas.
While we do have this story from nearly two years ago, where The Hollywood Reporter claimed that Sylvester Stallone was working on the female-centric spinoff, that's about the most recent story we can track down. Since then everything about the idea seems to have died. We're not sure why Stallone felt the need to make this public statement now. Maybe he spent the weekend Googling himself and just came across the story recently. It's also possible that he just recently noticed the backlash that the female Ghostbusters have had to deal with, and Stallone was afraid he'd get painted with that brush.
Of course, the other reason that Sylvester Stallone may want to end any Expendables conversations is that the man is back to being a hot property in Hollywood. Following his performance in Creed, Sly won the Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award. When people remember you as an aging action hero it's fine to cash in on that image. However, there's little that Hollywood loves as much as the aging dramatic actor who has never won an Oscar. If Stallone is looking for a role that might still get him that Best Actor award, he probably wants to eliminate all discussions of Expendables movies. We hope that's not the reason, as, by making the denial, the actor is having the opposite impact, and now we're talking about The Expendables again.
Are you interested in seeing a female version of the Expendables, or is this final nail in the coffin of the idea the news you were waiting for? Had you completely forgotten the idea existed until just now?
