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Eclectic Pictures and Hollywood Ventures Group have announced “Expendabelles,” a ‘female-driven expansion’ of “The Expendables” franchise.
Sound familiar? It should. The first “The Expendables” opened in 2010, grossing $274.5 million off an $80 million budget. That quickly led to a sequel in 2012 that similarly earned more than triple its budget.
In 2014, as “The Expendables 3” was readying for release, word came that the creative team on the hit comedy “Legally Blonde” – namely director Robert Luketic and writers Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah – were planning a female-led spin-off of the franchise. That project followed a group of female operatives who had to pose as call girls to rescue a nuclear scientist being held hostage.
Soon after, “The Expendables 3” collapsed at the box-office following poor reviews and a leak of the entire movie online several weeks ahead of release. As a result, the franchise went dormant for nearly a decade, and the spin-off was scrapped.
Now, Eclectic and HVG indicate they’ve found a new way forward with the project and unveiled it early today at Cannes, where talks with distribution partners, financiers and creative talent are underway.
The project will now reportedly serve as an origin story set in the late 1990s and follows a team of elite female operatives in a “stylised, action-driven cinematic event designed to expand the mythology of the franchise while standing firmly on its own”.
Source: THR
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