Expend4bles’ director wants you to have as much fun watching the movie as he did making it

polygon.com:

There aren’t many action franchises like the Expendables movies.

Just ask Expend4bles director Scott Waugh. He calls the movies “escapism,” “tongue-in-cheek” fun where the action is tailored around one-liners. They’re loving throwbacks to an era of cheesier action movies, with stars just as capable of delivering a punchline as a vicious right hook.

“It feels like an amusement ride, right?” Waugh tells Polygon. “Like, you’re gonna go smile, you’re gonna laugh, you’re gonna watch some actors do some pretty badass stuff, and hopefully leave with some enjoyment.”

2023 has been a good year for Waugh. After a six-year gap since the release of his last movie, the Josh Hartnett survival feature 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain, both Expend4bles and Waugh’s Jackie Chan/John Cena action comedy Hidden Strikecame out within two months of each other. (Waugh tells Polygon Hidden Strike took seven years to complete.) Waugh, a former stunt performer — brother of fellow stunt performer turned director Ric Roman Waugh and son of stunt performer Fred Waugh — now has his hands on one of the biggest action franchises in America.

For Expend4bles, Waugh reunited with stunt coordinator Alan Ng and the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, who worked with him on Hidden Strike. The reunion was a no-brainer for Waugh, who praised Ng’s “ingenuity and violence” when talking to Polygon. He pitched their involvement to Jason Statham, who takes over for Sylvester Stallone as the franchise lead in this entry in the series. Statham was “super excited” to work with the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, Waugh says. Ng’s team and the cast’s stellar skills make the movie’s action the best the franchise has seen yet.

“I wanted to change the hand-to-hand combat and knife fights so