The Expendables 4: Where it Stands Now

Ordinarily I go by Box Office Mojo when citing box office grosses, but given the evident incompleteness of their figures in regard to The Expendables 4 (China is left out altogether) it was worthwhile to go elsewhere. Offering an alternative, apparently more complete, figure, is The Numbers, which as of yesterday reported the film's worldwide gross, at last count, as a little under $49 million.

$49 million.

The movie will probably edge past the $50 million mark before it departs theaters entirely, but not by much, which would work out to perhaps $25 million in rentals for the movie's backers--as against the $100 million+ they spent on production, and the at least comparable figure that they probably spent on everything else (promotion, distribution, participations and residuals).

Theatrical flops do sometimes become hits in home entertainment--but there is a very big gap indeed between that $25 million and the $200 million+ laid out for the film, the kind of gap that few movies but blockbusters are able to cover.

The result is that in just about any year but this one the movie would be guaranteed a spot on Deadline's inevitable list of the top money-losers of the year--while even in the year of The Flash and Indiana Jones 5 this one still has a shot at that dubious distinction.