Expend4bles earned just $8.3 million in its opening weekend at the US box office, marking a new franchise low for the Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham-fronted action series.
As reported by Comscore, the fourth Expendables movie suffered the franchise's worst opening weekend at the U.S. box office, pulling in a mediocre $8.3 million and losing the fight for the top spot to The Nun 2, which conjured up $8.4 million in its third weekend following a scary good $32.6 million weekend box office victory.
Expend4bles marks the first entry in the series in nearly a decade but continues the drop in box office debuts, earning $7.5 million less than 2014's The Expendables 3, which ended up grossing $15.8 million in its opening weekend, putting it behind the 2010 franchise starter ($34.8 million) and its 2012 sequel ($28.5 million).
The low takings for Expend4bles contributed to the worst box office weekend of the entire year, joining A Haunting in Venice, which pulled in $6.3 million, The Equalizer 3, earning $4.7 million, and Barbie, with another $3.2 million, in the top five slots on the U.S. box office charts, though no movie managed to clear $10 million.
The Expendables seeks to bring together the most notable action heroes of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Lead star Stallone started teasing Expendables 4 in 2018, revealing that the series was definitely not finished, even though the third entry was the lowest-grossing film in the trilogy, possibly demonstrating franchise fatigue.
The fourth movie reunites Stallone and Statham with Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture while introducing several new team members with different combat styles and tactics, such as Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy Garcia, and Iko Iwais as the series' newest villain.
Despite new blood being in the mix, the latest movie failed to make a bang at the box office and is also the worst-reviewed of the series with a 16% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. IGN's own review of Expend4bles said it "lacks any of the nostalgia, charisma, and charm that made the franchise appealing in the first place".
Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
