We have our first trailer for (sigh) Expend4bles, the fourth film in Sylvester Stallone‘s old guy action franchise, and it looks about as one would expect for the fourth film in a series that was already about aging action stars reclaiming their glory days. Though it is clever of them to put the number in the title — a naming convention so out of date it fits right in with the themes of the films — from here on out we’ll just be calling it Expendables 4 because that’s a better title. So here’s that Expendables 4 trailer.
To be fair, the fourth film actually seems to be trying to pull in some new action blood, but not in the “young” blood way that backfired for Expendables 3. All of its new stars in 4 are already pretty established action veterans already, just not in the U.S. Confirmed to be returning for this film are Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Sylvester Stallone, though the series has had a slew of cameos from other action stars that may return.
They’ll now be teaming up with Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, and Andy Garcia. Not exactly the action star classics that the first and second films pulled in, but both Jaa and Uwais are exciting to see if you’re into Asian action cinema. Maybe this film is looking to set up a new generation of action stars to take over, considering the first movie came out more than a decade ago, but it’s not the strongest lineup.
The plot of the film seems pretty generic as the mercenary force known as the Expendables gets called back into action to save the world, except this time they need a whole new gang of younger folks to help them out. Interestingly, Stallone is not given top billing this time around as he seems to be taking a more supporting role and Statham becomes the solo lead. The film is directed by Need for Speed director Scott Waugh from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer & Tad Daggerhart and Max Adams.
As its trailer declares in large print, Expendables 4 releases on September 22 in theaters.
