The Rock’s Ideal Expendables Role Would’ve Fixed The Sylvester Stallone Franchise’s Worst Problem

The Expendables has potentially run its course as a franchise after 2023’s Expend4bles, and it’s a shame that the movie series will end without featuring an action star who’s always felt like a perfect fit, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The wrestler-turned-actor once admitted he wouldn’t mind starring in an Expendables movie, and his casting would have fixed the worst problem that the series has faced since its first film. With one notable exception, The Expendables has always been short on memorable villains to challenge Sylvester Stallone and his band of aging action heroes.

Dwayne Johnson can definitely pull off an action villain, as seen with his performance as Fast Five‘s Luke Hobbs, the best villain of the Fast and Furious movie franchise. It would have made perfect sense, then, to cast him as a villain in one of the Expendables movies, working against Stallone’s Barney Ross in one of his missions. Alas, Stallone and Expendables creator David Callaham appear to have missed their opportunity to cast The Rock in a role he was apparently interested in playing, leaving the franchise with arguably just one memorable villain across its four movies.

Dwayne Johnson Would Have Liked To Play A Villain In The Expendables

The Rock Declared His Wish To Play An Antagonist To Stallone’s Character In 2014

It was during an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit in 2014 that Dwayne Johnson first declared his wish to be an Expendables villain. When asked whether he was going to join The Expendables on their next mission, he turned the question on its head and instead answered that he wanted to go after Barney Ross, Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, and the other members of the team. Unfortunately, Johnson’s dream Expendables role never came to pass, and it now looks as though the franchise has probably passed him by.

The Rock’s presence as a villain was sorely lacking in at least three out of the four Expendables movies, in which Eric Roberts, Mel Gibson, and Andy Garcia were less than convincing as their chief antagonists. While the Expendables franchise focused its attention on gathering together a star-studded ensemble of action stars without precedent, including the likes of Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, and Bruce Willis, it rarely found villains capable of matching the lot of them.

The Expendables Franchise Only Had 1 Memorable Villain In 4 Movies

Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Character In The Second Movie Was A Real Villain

The one exception to the franchise’s lackluster villains came with The Expendables 2, which is by far the best Expendables movie. Even before shooting began, Sylvester Stallone was making it known that he’d been waiting to have a showdown with Jean-Claude Van Damme onscreen for a long time. Two of the biggest action stars of the 1980s predictably go at each other in the movie’s climactic scene, and it doesn’t disappoint, offering up exactly the kind of hand-to-hand combat we’d been waiting for since the first Expendables was announced.

In the end, Stallone beats Van Damme, but it’s not before the latter is able to show what he can do in arguably the coolest scene in the entire franchise. The Expendables 2‘s Jean Villain is the only main villain in the series who can genuinely be classed as a fighter. Even more importantly, however, it’s clear the amount of effort that Van Damme has put into creating this slippery machiavel, who appears to take sadistic pleasure in making others afraid of him.

Fast Five Proves That The Rock Would’ve Been A Great Expendables Villain

Dwayne Johnson Would Have Gone Toe-To-Toe With Sly Stallone

While Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Jean Vilain is unspeakably evil, Dwayne Johnson could have brought something different to the table as a villain in another Expendables movie. As The Rock shows in his first Fast and Furious appearance, 2011’s Fast Five, he’s more than ready to go toe-to-toe with any action star as an antagonist, even if they’re Vin Diesel. What was more impressive, though, was that Johnson’s character, Luke Hobbs, was not inherently evil. He was ultimately a special agent just trying to do his job.

This nuanced approach to an antagonist would have served the Expendables franchise well, given that Barney Ross and his team are ultimately mercenaries who aren’t necessarily on the side of any state. It would be an interesting change of angle to see the Expendables fighting a branch of the US state, as Dom Toretto and his gang do in Fast Five. That said, it would have also been fun to see Johnson playing an actual villain, something he rarely does.

The Expendables

Cast

Jason Statham, Curtis Jackson, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Andy Garcia, Sylvester Stallone, Terry Crews, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson, Wesley Snipes

Summary

The Expendables is an American action film franchise created by David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone. It revolves around a team of elite mercenaries and serves as an homage to 1980s and 1990s blockbuster action films, featuring iconic action stars. The franchise includes four films, released between 2010 and 2023, along with comic books, video games, and potential spin-offs, including a canceled all-female film. Known for its ensemble cast and explosive action, The Expendables celebrates both classic and modern action heroes.

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