The Expendables 4 could feature Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross in the mission assigning role previously occupied by Bruce Willis’ Mr. Church. Stallone’s return to The Expendables franchise after an eight-year long gap from the failure of The Expendables 3, The Expendables 4 will debut later this year, though a hard 2022 release date hasn’t been set yet. Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Rady Couture are returning for The Expendables 4, while the series’ tradition of bringing aboard new blood is also continuing.
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50 Cent and Megan Fox will also appear in The Expendables 4, along with Tony Jaa of Ong Bak fame and Indonesian action star Iko Uwais as the main villain. The Expendables 4 was recently showcased at CinemaCon, which unveiled footage (not released to the public) and the movie’s official poster. Though Stallone is a major pillar of The Expendables franchise, both creatively and on-camera, his name was featured with the “and” designation, which might indicate something about his role in the movie.

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While The Expendables 4 still remains mysterious, there’s enough information to form a good educated guess as to how the Expendables’ leader Barney Ross might be seen in the movie. What it all could point to is Ross having stepped down as the team’s full-time leader, and instead directing the team in a similar manner as their old frenemy Mr. Church did in the first two Expendables movies. Of course, even in such a role, Barney Ross is still likely to jump into the heat of the action when The Expendables 4 reaches its climactic showdown.

The Expendables 4 Is A Torch Passing Movie (& Stallone’s Last)

Early speculation about The Expendables 4 ,which bore the initial title of The Expendables: A Christmas Story, posited that the movie would shift the team’s second-in-command Lee Christmas into center stage (and setting up The Expendables 4 for a holiday season theme). This turned out to be the case when Stallone confirmed the film as a torch passing story from Barney Ross to Lee Christmas as leader of the Expendables. Stallone also revealed that The Expendables 4 would be final appearance in the franchise, which consequently raised questions about what his role in the film will be.

While not a lot of marketing material has been unveiled publicly yet, Barney Ross has been seen relatively little in what has been shown. In comparison, Statham’s Christmas has been noticeably more prominent, particularly in set photos showing him alongside Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais. With the latter being the film’s main villain, seeing Christmas rather than Ross going head-to-head with him is a change of pace after Ross took down past arch-villains played by Eric Roberts, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and Mel Gibson. That’s even more true considering the kind of villain Iko Uwais might embody. This and the mantle-passing nature of The Expendables 4 could suggest that Ross isn’t affiliated with the team in the same capacity he once was.

Theory: Expendables 4 Gives Stallone’s Barney The Mr. Church Role

Bruce Willis’ appearances as Mr. Church in the first two Expendables movies didn’t show him as a full-fledged mercenary, but a shadowy CIA operative recruiting the Expendables for missions. Church eventually took a more active role in the finale of The Expendables 2, fighting right alongside Barney Ross, Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and the rest of the team. He didn’t return for The Expendables 3, with Harrison Ford’s Max Drummer stepping into the equivalent role of the team’s mission commander. With neither Church nor Drummer returning for The Expendables 4, that leaves a big question of who the team are receiving mission debriefings from.

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It took the Expendables until the ending of The Expendables 2 when he joined them against Van Damme’s Jean Vilain, Scott Adkins’ right-hand man Hector, and their team before they had come to consider the ambiguously allied Church a friend. Their relationship with Drummer was less tense, but the fact that he’s not returning either suggests him as more of a one-off battlefield compatriot. As the one-time leader of the Expendables, Barney Ross is someone the entire team would be willing to trust with their lives. In fact, he might be the only person the team would have no reluctance to take orders from, which could make Ross potentially the only real candidate to succeed Church and Drummer as a mission director. Even so, that hardly means Ross is likely to be on the sidelines.

Why Stallone’s Barney Ross Will Still Probably Be In The Final Showdown

Though Church and Drummer gave the Expendables their battlefield assignments, both eventually lent the team battlefield support. It’s highly unlikely that Ross would simply sit back as his teammates carry out his orders (not to mention Sylvester Stallone himself as the director of The Expendables when the series began). Barney Ross may have shifted into the role formerly occupied by Church and Drummer. However, with the added evidence of set photos showing Stallone in his mission attire, once he sees the going get rough for his friends, he’s sure to arrive to help. From the standpoint of Stallone’s role in the series, it would also be the perfect way for him to exit The Expendables franchise with one last mission.

With Stallone declaring The Expendables 4 his final film in the series, that’s led to speculation that Barney Ross might be killed off. If that’s the plan, the idea might be for Barney Ross to die fighting alongside his friends. Whatever the film has in store for Barney Ross, Stallone’s key creative role in The Expendables series makes it very difficult to believe that he’d simply make a minor cameo or bark orders at his teammates from hundreds of miles away. However the climax of The Expendables 4 plays out, audiences can very likely expect to see Barney Ross alongside his fellow mercenaries for one final mission.

With Barney Ross being such a central figure to The Expendables series from its very beginning, The Expendables 4 is surely determined to make Stallone’s swan song from the franchise an emotional one for him and Ross. Whatever shape his departure takes, Ross might not enter the film as the Expendables’ front man that he’s known as in The Expendables series’ comeback. However, even if he’s moved into an advisory and directing capacity for the team, Barney Ross’ loyalty to his friends and sense of adventure is likely to lead him to load up for one last battle in The Expendables 4.

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