It’s like The Expendables… but, you know, for kids! Sylvester Stallone announced that the next entry in his action hero all-star franchise, The Expendables 3, will be rated PG-13. The first two Expendables films were both rated R.
“We want to reach as many people as possible,” Stallone said at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival (via Deadline). “It’s very close to an R, believe me, it’s right there. But I think we owe it to the next generation. We thought we’d join that club for a while.”
The irony of Sylvester Stallone trying to reach “the next generation” with a franchise devoted entirely to nostalgia for the last generation (if not the generation before that) does not go unnoticed, but PG-13 movies do tend to fare much better at the box office and, honestly, many PG-13 movies are so ridiculously violent we can only imagine the MPAA fell asleep at the wheel in the first place.
Sylvester Stallone said the tone of The Expendables 3 will be different this time as well, but despite the family-friendly rating, they are actually toning down the humor for the third installment.
“With the first one, I didn’t know which direction to go.” Stallone said in a press conference. “It was experimental, more dramatic and heavier. In the second one, I think we went too far in the comedy and one liners. (For the third film) I realized we should get back to being more dramatic. When men and women know each other, there’s a kind of human comedy, not jokes, but when the action starts I don’t like to do jokes. So, I believe we finally got it right on the third one. It’s kind of like marriage.”
But will AUDIENCES want to marry the first PG-13 installment of The Expendables, or will they feel a little bit betrayed? We’ll find out when The Expendables 3 hits theaters on August 15, 2014.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
