Expend4bles, the fourth installment of The Expendables franchise, is set to hit the cinemas this month, bringing back the famous group of mercenaries to our screen.
The world is crying for absolute bada*ses and all options are off the table in Scott Waugh’s upcoming movie, which will see Barney Ross and his team carry out yet another dangerous mission.
The rogue yet human nature of the characters of Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham Lee, and Dolph Lundgren makes the franchise stand out in the action genre in the times of Marvel and DC heroes, who possess extraterrestrial powers. And if you like Stallone’s very own Avengers, you’d admire The Dirty Dozen even more.
How The Dirty Dozen Inspired Guillermo Del Toro’s Blade 2
The Dirty Dozen (1967) follows the story of Major Reisman (Lee Marvin), who on the orders of Colonel Breed, assembles and trains a team of soldiers to obliterate enemy lines and assassinate German personnel. The soldiers, akin to Sylvester Stallone‘s team, aren’t your typical yes-man. Instead, they are murderers, rapists, and criminals on death row brought together for one good cause.
That one mission proved to be a hit at the box office, earning $45.3 million and multiple Oscar nominations. Moreover, the ultra-violent movie that is now considered a classic in the action genre, has inspired not just The Expendables, but several other Hollywood hits, including Marvel’s very own classic Blade 2.
Blade (1998) was Marvel’s first successful film. Blade, who is a part-vampire and part-mortal, becomes a vampire hunter to protect human beings in the plot. Blade 2 took the franchise to new heights thanks to The Dirty Dozen. Guillermo del Toro, the master of the dark genre, was roped in to direct the movie and he shaped it in the mold of the 1967 hit.
“It’s basically The Dirty Dozen,” David Goyer, one of the writers of the movie, told Sci-Fi Wire.
“A threat emerges that could potentially wipe out both the vampire and the human races. Blade is put in a situation where he’s forced to team up with the vampires because it’s for the good of both races.”
To fight off the Reapers, Blade partners with the vampire council, much like Major Reisman teaming up with the so-called bad guys to fight off a bigger threat. The idea worked brilliantly, and Blade 2 made $155 million at the box office.
Was Inglourious Basterds Influenced by The Dirty Dozen?
The Expendables and Blade 2 drew inspiration from The Dirty Dozen in assembling their respective unorthodox teams. Meanwhile, Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds mimics the unconventional way of fighting Germans instead.
A group of Jewish soldiers led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) take no prisoners, like Reisman’s men, during their undercover mission to bring down the Nazi government.
In a separate interview, Tarantino admitted it was The Dirty Dozen idea that set him down to start writing Inglourious Basterds, but he insisted that he tends to go off the original track and ends up bringing his own thing.
Source: Empire
