The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2023
Expend4bles: the fourth Expendables grossed about half its budget
Lionsgate's $100M action sequel opened to $8M and grossed only ~$51M worldwide, the franchise's worst ever.
Lionsgate Films · 2023-09-22
What happened
Expend4bles (styled Expend4bles) is the fourth film in the Expendables action franchise, released by Lionsgate in September 2023. It returned the aging mercenary ensemble for another outing.
The film had a production budget of about $100 million. It grossed only roughly $51 million worldwide — about $16.7 million in the US and $34.3 million overseas — widely described as a box-office bomb.
It opened to around $8 million domestically, the franchise's worst debut, and the run faded quickly. The once-profitable brawler series had lost the audience that had carried the earlier installments.
Why it happened
- A $100 million budget for a fourth installment carried a cost the fading nostalgia crowd could no longer justify at the box office.
- The $8 million domestic opening was the lowest in the franchise's history, showing the concept had run out of audience trust.
- A worldwide gross of about $51 million against a $100 million budget left the picture far from break-even before marketing.
- The aging ensemble and diminishing returns had turned a reliable action brand into a loss-making sequel.
The lesson
A franchise does not keep its value by repeating itself: Expend4bles cost ~$100M and grossed only ~$51M because the fourth outing had lost the earlier films' audience.
Sources
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