The all-female all-female spin-off dubbed The Expendabelles.
Various names were thrown around for The Expendabelles, with Sigourney Weaver being suggested by Stallone himself - though she swiftly ed, per The Hollywood Reporter. In November 2022, the same outlet got Millennium Films' exec Jeffrey Greenstein to finally reveal the project had been scrapped. Greenstein stated "... my problem with that project was always trying to find a way to justify why we'd have a woman team. Instead of trying to explain that, why not just have women on the regular team and [they're] badass?" He makes a valid point, which exposes how pointless it was to purposefully exclude female icons from the line-up.
The Expendelles Story Sounded Terrible
The Expendabelles was confirmed in 2014, the same year The Expendables movie spin-off's supposed logline, revealing it involved "the world's deadliest female operatives" posing as sex workers to infiltrate the island of a "deadly despot." When The Expendabelles premise was met with mockery, the studio soon claimed the wrong logline had been sent out and it just involved a female mercenary unit on a dangerous rescue mission.
Mirroring Jeffrey Greenstein's comments, it was clear that Millennium were having trouble explaining just why the team had to be women only. If the best premise they could conceive of is that they were disguising themselves as sex workers - which would have no doubt involved some leery shots of the cast as they went about the mission - then the concept was fundamentally flawed. Given the macho nature of the previous Expendables, introducing some strong female characters and giving them prominent roles would already add a fresh dynamic.
The Female Icons Who Should The Expendables
Megan Fox has ed the team in Expendables' fourth outing, which will arrive in 2023. Assuming the series continues, then it's long overdue for the introduction of some female action icons too. Michelle Yeoh has a rich legacy of martial arts roles, but it's been a little while since she appeared in such a physical role. With Atomic Blonde and The Old Guard, Charlize Theron has become one of Hollywood's top female action stars, while Michelle Rodriguez - between the Fast & Furious and the Machete films - would be another great choice.
In the same way Stallone cherry-picked famed action stars for The Expendables and created roles around their persona, the same could easily be done for a future sequel involving women 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 too - there is a lot of potential. With The Expendabelles being canned, it appears the studio has seen the error of its ways, but just how it will apply those lessons to The Expendables 5 and beyond is another question.
