Aside from the huge piracy leak that left The Expendables 3 available to downloaders weeks before release, one of the things that hurt the old-men-blowing-up-stuff franchise was its PG-13 rating. The first Expendables was a hard and unapologetic R. The second was a PG-13 film that added digital blood in to make it R. The third was like watching members of a nursery home trying to escape from teenage-geared monotony. Only making $206 million worldwide, the third entry in the franchise under-performed compared to the $276 million haul of the first and $305 million haul of the second.
Sylvester Stallone recently met with Crave Online to discuss The Expendables 3 upcoming Blu-ray release and had some very frank things to say about the mistakes he made on the production. When asked if the future entries will garner R ratings, Stallone said, “absolutely unequivocally yes, I believe it was a horrible miscalculation on everyone’s part in trying to reach a wider audience, but in doing such, diminish the violence that the audience expects. I’m quite certain it won’t happen again.”
Stallone defended the PG-13 rating, saying that it helped lighten up the mood, especially when talking about a bunch of characters who keep surviving suicide missions. He also noted that we may see the fall of one of the main characters in The Expendables 4. Sly went on to say, “It’s is a big conflict for me, because in an R-rated film it is difficult to believe that none of the heroes die. I personally just believe that the characters become identifiable and their demise could put a dark cloud over an audience exiting the theatre after seeing the film. But that may change in ‘Expendables 4’…”
Stallone also pointed out that he courted Mel Gibson to direct the third entry instead of being just the main villain. That would have been an interesting curveball to an otherwise bland and bombastic action movie.
Sound back in the comments and let us know if you think Stallone is just trying to garner positive public opinion after seeing The Expendables 3 get trashed by audiences and critics alike.
