You’ll Never See Sylvester Stallone in ‘The Expendables’ Again

Sylvester Stallone turned up his nose at $20 million. That’s what he’d get for participating in The Expendables 4. However, the actor dropped out of the fourth chapter of The Expendables franchise due to creative differences. Deadline says Stallone and “Nu Image/Millennium chief Avi Lerner could not find common ground on a new director, on the script and on certain qualitative elements of the film.”

Uhh, isn’t that franchise basically paint by numbers? What common ground do they need?

According to sources, Stallone’s success with Creed made him afraid of hurting his brand. He “was concerned about potentially underwhelming results of another franchise with which he is indelibly linked.”

That’s understandable. Once you get an Oscar nomination, you wanna keep that vibe going. The Expendables seems like a step backwards for Stallone.

Stallone and Lerner have a tight relationship. Lerner makes it sound like it’s normal to have these disagreements. He told Deadline:

“We’ve got disagreements with Sly, but we’ve had them for over a year and a half. Right now, each one has an opinion. We agreed on 95% of things, but there are certain things in production we don’t agree on. I don’t think it’s over, but write whatever you want. In my opinion, it’s not dead.”

Whatever happens to Stallone, at least he doesn’t have to sell his dog anymore. That’s when you know you’ve hit rock bottom.