The Expendables....As A TV Series?

[Mitch Henessey]

EXCLUSIVE: TV action stars are getting The Expendables treatment as Sylvester Stallone’s hit feature franchise is heading to television. Fox is developing The Expendables, an event series based on the movies, with the franchise’s writer and star Stallone executive producing alongside the films’ producer Avi Lerner and NCIS veteran Shane Brennan who serves as showrunner.

Writing/executive producing the TV adaptation are feature writing duo Greg Coolidge (Ride Along) & Kirk Ward and Brennan. It is described as a fun action drama that unites iconic TV stars as a new team of highly-skilled heroes who are on a mission to stop a dangerous terrorist. The project hails from Lionsgate TV, whose feature sibling distributes The Expendables movies, CBS TV Studios, where Brennan is under an overall deal, and CBSTV-based Shane Brennan Prods. Also executive producing the potential event series, for which Fox has ordered a script, are Kevin King, long-time executive at Stallone’s Rogue Marble production company, and Shane Brennan Prods.’ Grant Anderson.

There is no cast attached or approached yet but the producers have plenty of beloved TV action stars to choose from: Walker Texas Ranger‘s Chuck Norris, who already is part of The Expendables feature franchise, 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland, Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck, Xena‘s Lucy Lawless, Quantum Leap‘s Scott Bakula, Alias‘ Jennifer Garner, A-Team‘s Mr. T and Strike Back‘s Sullivan Stapleton and Philip Winchester, just to name a few.

The Expendables is among the movie titles in the Lionsgate library that the company had been eying to mine for television for some time, with the idea for a potential Expendables series first floated back in 2012.

The first three movies in The Expendables franchisee have grossed almost $800 million in the worldwide boxoffice. A fourth and fifth installment as well as a female offshoot The Expendabelles are in various stages of development.

Coolidge & Ward, repped by Paradigm and managed by Jay Froberg of ROAR, were recently tapped to script Roadrunner, an action comedy that has Scott Eastwood and Trace Adkins attached to star.

NCIS: LA executive producer/showrunner Brennan, repped by Paradigm and attorney Kevin Kelly, joined the mothership NCIS series at the beginning of Season 4 in 2006, taking the reins as showrunner the following season. He created spinoff NCIS: LA and ran both series for two years before focusing his attention solely on NCIS: LA.

http://deadline.com/2015/03/expendables-tv-series-fox-sylvester-stallone-1201386545/

I'm not so sure about this one.

The Expendables formula works on the big screen, because everything happens in small doses, one film at a time. Let's face it, in the grand scheme of things, The Expendables is one big nostalgia kick for action films and stars from the 80's and the 90's. It's a chance to see Stallone, Arnie, Willis, and others relive their glory days, and it's one of the main hooks for The Expendables franchise.

Of course, I'll take a chance on this out of curiosity, when it happens. But on the surface, I don't like the idea of stretching The Expendables into a season long series, because you can only produce so many nostalgia buzz moments before you cross the line for overkill.

I know nothing is confirmed as of now, but I have feeling they'll use the series as a marketing tool/tie-in for the fourth film (i.e you can draw some comparisons with season 2 of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Terminator: Salvation).

Although, you could say a fourth Expendables desperately needs some real momentum. The Expendables 3 opened at #4 in the top ten last year. The movie finished its box office run with $206,172,544 to turn a profit on a reported $90,000,000 budget, but 3 had a lot of help from the overseas total with $166,850,000. That's a big difference, when you compare it to the $39,322,544 domestic total. That, and 3 received a good amount of negative reviews, with a lot of complaints about a neutered PG-13 rating from the fans.

Any interest in an Expendables TV series?

 

[INDYjon22]

Yeah, I am not convinced this will work. The films were campy, but campy good, and made for the big screen. The small screen format will seriously restrict the simplest of formulas to make this show work, lots of violence and explosions. That said, this show has the potential to jump start the future action stars of the industry by giving them some exposure and gaining name value. So, while it is what I view as a high risk program there is a certain level of moderate reward that could be gained.