Christmas. Barney. Toll Road. Are we talking about a traveling holiday kids’ movie? No, these are the household names of beloved characters in Expend4bles, which hits theaters nationwide this weekend. It’s a franchise that seemingly can’t be stopped, even after disappointing returns from the third installment (released almost 10 years ago) and this film’s opening weekend. Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and more return for a fourth addition that also welcomes newcomers like Megan Fox and 50 Cent. Together, the colorful personas are out for blood after the alleged tragic loss of one of their own, taking their mercenary selves overseas to neutralize yet another terror threat.

Expend4bles may not be getting the best fan reactions or critical response, but there are plenty of thrilling shoot-em-up sequences that action movie addicts will surely eat up. And to learn more about pulling off a fourth film from a behind-the-scenes perspective, we recently caught up with producers Kevin King-Templeton and Les Weldon, who previously hinted at possible future installments. They spoke to us about returning to O.G. fashion with a hard-R rating, what it’s like to work with a great collaborator like Stallone, and more.

‘Everything Starts With the Script’

As the producers will tell you, Expendables as a franchise is “fun-driven” with hopes of audiences simply having a good time while experiencing each installment. “I guess we strayed away from our fundamentals of being harder. We tried the PG-13, not sure it worked,” said King-Templeton in discussing The Expendables 3. “But we never wanted to leave the franchise. On that note, everyone wanted to do another one. The fan desire was there, the buyers were there, the cast wanted to do it.”

Weldon piggybacked off King-Templeton’s comments regarding the creative process and challenges behind churning out a worthy sequel, saying, “Kevin and I were acutely aware that we had to do this one right. If we’re doing another one, we want to deliver all the action, all the thrills, the hard-R rating, real explosions, real fights, and do it right for the fans.” He continued:

“But it takes a while, a movie like this, aside from the development of the script, which was super important for us. It’s also, what is the availability of all these actors of all the stars? And sometimes, you can get a star, and sometimes they all say, ‘Yes, we’re going to do it.’ And then as you get closer to the time, it’s like, ‘Well, so-and-so can’t do it’… So it’s very difficult to get this many personalities together.”

Related: Exclusive: Expend4bles Director and Stunt Coordinator on Their Latest Action Entry

Everything starts with the script, as King-Templeton emphasized on multiple occasions during our interview. And on top of the thrilling “hard-R-rated” action and set pieces, it also comes down to the mercenaries we’ve come to love, in a cheap thrills sort of way. “Those characters are each important in their own way, whether it be Megan [Fox] and her connection to Christmas, or even 50 Cent and Dolph, their whole thing going on together. All of that is from a story-driven, character-driven point,” said Weldon, who continued:

So you don’t have any kind of just stray characters hanging around, which could be a very easy trap to fall into, if you say, ‘Oh, let’s bring in this big star and just put them into the movie,’ and he serves no purpose. So we had to be very aware of that and develop it that way and get the best actors for the part. And I think we did it. Otherwise it becomes Cannonball Run, just people showing up in cameos for no reason.

On Stallone’s Dialogue and ‘Super Collaborative’ Nature
Lionsgate 

If you’re not a cinephile, you might not know that Stallone is really a filmmaker and writer at heart. He wrote the script for Rocky, a Best Picture winner, back in the day and didn’t even envision himself in the titular role at first. Decades later, he’s an award-winning actor and director, having helmed the first Expendables film in addition to starring in it. “Just to be a director is tough enough. But to write it and style it, I mean, he’s a force of nature,” said King-Templeton. He elaborated on Stallone’s dynamics of the new film:

“So on this one, he was super collaborative. Jason [Statham] loves Sly’s dialogue. So, every Expendables, you have them in the cockpit. There’s always the obligatory Christmas-Barney cockpit scene. And Sly loves to write that dialogue between them and the banter. He knows Jason’s pace and his rhythm and his timing. So yeah, he’s super collaborative.”

Related: Expend4bles Review: Statham Takes Charge in By-the-Numbers Return to Hard-R Rating

Weldon continued on the perks of working with Sly:

It’s not ‘my way or the highway.’ Yes, he knows what he wants as a filmmaker. But if there were any problems or issues, even if they’re production issues, whatever they are, he will actually listen. And he’s a problem solver. That’s what you need.

And on top of all the challenges behind pulling off yet another Expendables film, let it be known that this one was shot during the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is still very much apparent around the world with a possible surge upon us yet again. “We had a whole new department that I’ve never used before,” said King-Templeton. “COVID coordinators are very stringent; you couldn’t cross-pollinate any groups. Doing an Expendables picture in normal times is hard. It just really made it much more time-consuming. It was difficult, but you had to go through it.”

Weldon also shed light on the “tricky” nature of shooting during Coronavirus protocols, noting how, with a large-scale movie like this, there is often a “big crossover” between what’s first unit and then second unit. “But at the end of the day, I think everybody understood the kind of movie we’re making, and everybody was game to do it, and do it properly and safely,” he said. Agains tthe odds, they got it done.

From Lionsgate, Expend4bles is now in theaters.