‘The Expendabelles’ Is Finally Happening, and This Time It Will Be an All-Female Spinoff

Few franchises in modern action cinema have had as turbulent a journey as the ‘Expendables’ series. Built on the premise of assembling beloved genre icons into one oversized, explosive package, the Sylvester Stallone-led saga spans over a decade of high-octane cinema, with four feature films released between 2010 and 2023. Yet for almost as long as the main series has existed, a female-led spinoff has lingered just out of reach, promising to expand the mythology and repeatedly falling short of the finish line.

Plans for an all-female centered film were first announced as far back as October 2012, with Karen McCullah and Kirsten Smith hired to co-write the script. The early iteration was rough around the edges in more ways than one. The original concept pitched was that the all-female team would pose as sex workers to infiltrate the island of the film’s villain, a logline that was widely mocked. Despite multiple attempts to reframe and revive the project, Millennium Films president Jeffrey Greenstein officially stated in November 2022 that the project had been shelved.

Now, against all odds, ‘The Expendabelles’ is back, and this time the concept has been completely overhauled. Eclectic Pictures and Hollywood Ventures Group unveiled the news at the Cannes Film Festival as part of a new slate of globally commercial films. The newly revived version will serve as an origin story set in the late 1990s during the height of Y2K-era tension and geopolitical uncertainty, a framing that immediately separates it from anything the franchise has attempted before.

According to the filmmakers, the movie will drop a new generation of action heroes into a stylized, action-driven cinematic event designed to expand the mythology of the franchise while standing firmly on its own. The Y2K setting is a smart pivot, lending the project a period-flavored identity that could distinguish it from both its predecessors and the crowded female-ensemble action space. It suggests a film less interested in mimicking the original series and more focused on carving out its own aesthetic.

The producers have been vocal about their ambitions for the project. Eclectic’s Markel said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter that there has always been a strong global appetite for female-driven action franchises and that the goal is to deliver a fresh, stylish, adrenaline-fueled experience for worldwide audiences. HVG co-founder Glenn Gainor echoed that energy, telling that the aim is to honor the DNA of what made ‘The Expendables’ resonate globally, while evolving it in a way that feels both timely and commercially compelling.

The project is currently in the packaging phase, with the team actively assembling creative talent and in talks with distribution partners and financiers. No cast has been announced yet, which means the internet’s favourite casting game is wide open. The fourth installment, ‘Expend4bles’, saw the franchise enter a period of significant stagnation following poor critical and commercial performance, making this spinoff an important test of whether the universe still has life in it.

The nostalgia-soaked premise, combined with the shift away from a derivative concept toward something genuinely original, gives ‘The Expendabelles’ a more compelling pitch than it has ever had. Which action stars from the Y2K era would you most want to see suit up for this new team?