An all-female version of The Expendables has been canceled, making the series’ lack of female action icons an even bigger issue.
All feminine Consumables The spin-off is officially canceled and underscores the fact that the series shouldn’t have put female action icons aside for so long. The Expendables The series began with the mission statement to unite the most iconic action movie heroes. Over the course of three entries, he did an impressive job, bringing together Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Harrison Ford and many more. To date, however, The Expendables only featured two female team members in Yu Nan’s Maggie and Rouda Rousey’s Luna. That’s largely because creator Sylvester Stallone has planned an all-female spinoff dubbed The Expendabelles.
Various names have been thrown around for The Expendabelleswith Sigourney Weaver suggested by Stallone himself – although she quickly passed, by The Hollywood Reporter. In November 2022, the same outlet asked Millennium Films exec Jeffrey Greenstein to finally reveal that the project had been scrapped. Greenstein said “… my problem with this project was always trying to find a way to justify why we would have a women’s team. Instead of trying to explain this, why not just have women on the regular team and [they’re] badass?“He makes a valid point, which shows how pointless it was to deliberately exclude female icons from the lineup.
The story of Expendelles seemed terrible
The Expendabelles was confirmed in 2014, the same year Consumables 3 has been freed. The concept aroused a slight enthusiasm, although the hiring of Revenge of a Blonde director Robert Luketic and screenwriting duo Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith raised eyebrows about its potential tone. This year, Deadline reported on The Expendables the film’s supposed spin-off course of action, revealing that it involved “world’s deadliest female agents“posing as sex workers to infiltrate the island of a”mortal despot.” When The Expendabelles The premise was met with mockery, with the studio quickly claiming that the wrong logline had been sent and that it simply involved a unit of female mercenaries on a dangerous rescue mission.
Mirroring Jeffrey Greenstein’s comments, it was clear that Millennium was struggling to explain Why the team was to be all women. If the best premise they could conceive of was that they were dressing up as sex workers – which would no doubt have involved some suspicious cast shots during the mission – then the concept was fundamentally flawed. Given the macho nature of the former Consumablesintroducing strong female characters and giving them leading roles would already add a new dynamic.
The female icons who should join The Expendables
Megan Fox joined the team in Consumables‘ fourth outing, which will arrive in 2023. Assuming the series continues, the introduction of some female action icons is also long overdue. Michelle Yeoh has a rich heritage of martial arts roles, but it’s been a little while since she’s appeared in such a physical role. With Atomic Blonde and The old guardCharlize Theron has become one of Hollywood’s female action stars, while Michelle Rodriguez – between fast furious and the Machete movies – would be another great choice.
Similarly, Stallone selected famous action stars for The Expendables and created roles around their character, the same could easily be done for a future sequel involving female mercenaries. From Angelina Jolie to Zoe Saldana or even horror icons like Jamie Lee Curtis – who has plenty of action roles such as blue steel also – there is a lot of potential. With The Expendabelles being canned, it seems the studio has seen the error of its ways, but how much it will apply those lessons to Consumables 5 and beyond is another matter.