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Sylvester Stallone’s 2010 film “The Expendables” (which he originally wanted to be a comedy) was more about its gimmick than its premise, plot, or characters. The story followed a group of super-capable mercenaries frequently employed to enact military-style raids on the nests of international baddies. The mercs, nicknamed the Expendables, were all ultra-masculine, hard-spittin’, over-muscled tough guys who seemingly shared the same “boys will be boys” life philosophy, and valued bullets and beer. The plot involved … I don’t know, pirates or something? Something about war profiteering? The plot is the least memorable part of “The Expendables.”
The part everyone remembers, of course, is its stunt casting. Stallone assembled a panoply of recognizable male action stars, most of them in their 50s or 60s, all under one roof for his action-packed trifle. Stallone starred alongside Jason Statham, and shared a scene with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film also starred Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Terry Crews, and wrestler Steve Austin. The movie had more testosterone than a Super Bowl stadium. It didn’t much matter what this massive, manly cast was assembled to do, so long as it involved guns and ‘splosions. The gimmick was successful; “The Expendables” made almost $275 million on its $82 million budget.
Stallone recently conducted a video career retrospective with GQ Magazine, and the actor/director noted that he was inspired to make “The Expendables” after going to the Hollywood Bowl to see a bunch of bands that were founded in the 1960s and 1970s. During that “oldies” show, he saw that the musicians seemed either dead, or so old they kind of sucked. Stallone realized that if old past-their-prime musicians can still put on a show — and, importantly, still draw a crowd — then old past-their-prime action stars deserved a similar shot.
Rock and Roll made Stallone want to die
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It should be noted that when Sylvester Stallone made “The Expendables,” he was already 64 years old. He was born in the mid-1940s and was a kid in the 1950s, so his taste in music skews toward radio hits of that era. As such, he was perfectly at home at a Hollywood Bowl concert that featured bands like the Righteous Brothers. But seeing the Righteous Brothers in the late 2000s was a little depressing as Bobby Hatfield, one of the two central Brothers, had passed away in 2003.
As Stallone recalled the concert:
“I took my wife to an oldies concert. Ten groups. When I was young, they were all great. I said to my wife, ‘You’re gonna love this; this is sensational.’ We go to the Hollywood Bowl, and the first guy comes on, ‘The Righteous Brothers!’ Except there’s only one of them. The other one passed away, so it was ‘The Righteous Guy.’ And it’s ‘The Young Rascals!’ There was four guys, but now there’s one guy. And he’s an Old Rascal. And he was hiding behind everyone. It was a nightmare.”
Anyone who has seen a legacy musician can likely picture what Stallone is talking about. Many musical acts continue playing and producing records, even if they’ve fallen out of the public eye, and eventually they enter a “coasting” period wherein they only play oldies concerts like the one Stallone described. I’m writing this as someone who has seen The Who and Al Green in concert, both in 2025.
And that wasn’t the real death blow for Stallone, as his favorite band hadn’t even taken to the stage yet. When they did, Stallone really felt the crushing effect of time on both him and his musical heroes.
No one will come see one past-his-prime action star, but everyone wants to see all of them
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Stallone’s favorite band was Blood, Sweat & Tears, a jazz-rock band that formed back in 1967. Their biggest hit may be “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy,” and when they sang their signature hit at the Hollywood Bowl, Stallone’s soul died a little. As he described it:
“And finally, ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears!’ […] This guy was a killer. David Clayton-Thomas. He would dress in leather. […] Now … they come out, and he’s dressed in corduroy. Like a flannel shirt tucked into his buckle, and his belt is way up here. He sang ‘You’ve made me so … you guessed it … very happy!’ And I went ‘Oh my. […] You’re taking years off my life. Let’s get out of here.'”
But that experience, Stallone said, led directly into his idea for “The Expendables.” He was in his 60s, making him an “oldie,” himself. And if people will go to see a large lineup of oldies bands, then surely they’d want to see a similar lineup of oldies action heroes. As he said:
“Years later, I thought of all these action guys that had pretty much run their course. Pretty much me too. Boy, if you bring them back for an oldies concert, people will come. Individually, no one’s going to come. Let me get Dolph and Dave and Jason Statham. All these people. Jet Li. That’s an event, just like the oldies concert. That’s what that is. It was the curiosity factor.”
There have now been four “Expendables” movies, with the second and third making hundreds of millions of dollars each. It was an oldies concert that everyone wanted to see multiple times. Just don’t bother with the staggeringly stupid “Expend4bles.”