Stallone’s ‘The Expendables’ will get an all-female spin-off: Meet ‘The Expendabelles’
It’s official: Hollywood is preparing a spin-off of Sylvester Stallone’s ‘The Expendables’ and other major action movie icons, but with an all-female cast.
First came ‘Ghostbusters’ (2016), then ‘Ocean’s 8’ (2018), and now it’s ‘The Expendables’’ turn. Coming soon, the popular action franchise created by Sylvester Stallone will get its own spin-off featuring an all-female cast, as was just confirmed at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The announcement has already set social media ablaze—as one might expect—though for now there are hardly any details about the cast or plot.
The all-female ‘Expendables’ project is back on track after being on hold for more than ten years
As revealed by The Hollywood Reporter, Eclectic Pictures and Hollywood Ventures Group will collaborate to bring to life an ‘Expendables’ spin-off tentatively titled ‘The Expendabelles,’ featuring an all-female cast. The original project began to take shape in 2014 with the director and screenwriters of ‘Legally Blonde’ (2001), and its plot would have centered on a group of female mercenaries who had to pose as escorts to rescue a kidnapped nuclear scientist.
That version was canceled because, according to Jeffrey Greenstein of the production company Millennium Films, “trying to find a way to justify why we’d have a woman team.” It seems that both Eclectic and Hollywood Ventures Group have found the right formula, since twelve years later, in 2026, this feature film is part of the new slate of commercial projects presented at Cannes 2026. As announced, this new version will serve as an origin story for this new team of mercenaries, set in the late 1990s, when tensions over the Y2K bug and geopolitical uncertainty were at their peak.
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At this time, the film’s producers, as well as Lionsgate—which acquired the rights to the franchise in 2025—are searching for “top-tier creative talent” to bring this feature film to life, so no director, screenwriters, actresses, or release date have been confirmed yet. That said, the announcement has sparked some controversy online precisely because of the lukewarm commercial and critical reception of similar previous “experiments” in Hollywood, such as ‘Ghostbusters’ (2016) and ‘Ocean’s 8’ (2018). The most critical voices argue that it would have been better to create a new saga or story rather than “feminize” franchises typically associated with male characters.
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