The team might be reassembling for The Expendables 4, but Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Trench won’t be among them. Sylvester Stallone and Schwarzenegger had one of Hollywood’s biggest rivalries during their heyday. The two were poster boys for action cinema throughout the ’80s and ’90s, and often competed for who could achieve the most impressive physique, the higher body count, the largest payday and so forth. This is one reason they never appeared in a movie together at their peak.
Cut to 2010, and The Expendables finally paired them together for a brief sequence that also featured Bruce Willis. The pair became best friends in real life in the years leading up to The Expendables, and in the span of five years, there were four Schwarzenegger/Stallone movies, including Escape Plan. Arnie played Trench in The Expendables film franchise, a former comrade turned friendly rival to Stallone’s Barney. The Expendables 4 will feature some big changes though, with Stallone taking a supporting role while Trench won’t be appearing at all.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Was Unhappy After Expendables 3
Schwarzenegger hasn’t commented on the reason he won’t be appearing in The Expendables 4 yet, though the answer may lie in comments he made about the third movie. In 2017, Stallone walked briefly away from The Expendables 4, with Arnie proclaiming he also wouldn’t return to the series without his friend, telling EW that “There is no Expendables without Sly.” Schwarzenegger also stated that while he felt “… the first and second ones were terrific,” he didn’t like the Trench role in The Expendables 3. In the third entry, Trench helps Stallone’s Barney on his revenge mission by providing transport and later on in the story, firepower.
His role was a little bigger than the previous Expendables movies, though his screentime indicts he probably filmed his role in a few days. For Arnie, he felt Trench was “not playing well” during the story and that “… didn’t believe that I had any value in the movie.” While he didn’t rule out an Expendables return, he did state “… I think if they write a really good script [in] which my part is very well-developed, I would do it. If not, then I won’t do it.”
Why Expendables 4 Needs Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Trench
The Expendables 4 is putting less emphasis on bringing in action icons, though most of the original team will be returning. Trench has felt underused in all of his prior appearances, so it would have been to The Expendables 4’s benefit to bring him back in a much larger role. Schwarzenegger himself hasn’t starred in a movie since Terminator: Dark Fate either, so to see him in an action movie period would have been nice. If The Expendables 5 happens, hopefully, he’ll be back – and maybe he and Stallone’s Barney could become enemies and pay off their old action movie feud.
Source: EW
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
