To put this into some context, Spider-Man never kills anyone in his franchise but gets injured 10 times, Rambo gets injured 11 times, and Die Hard’s John McClane gets injured 16 times. He only gets injured once throughout the entire franchise that was just a minor head wound after the final scene of the second film. (will link to )Įach of the three films interestingly add something different, but despite this, one thing is always consistent: Frank. As The Playlist aptly said, “when it comes to the franchise that made his name, he’s walking away from it slowly (as something surely explodes behind him)”. If all goes well, we should be seeing Transporter 4 hit the big screen in 2015, but it seems that Statham won’t be present as Ed Skrein is taking over the lead role.
The film isn’t as good as Transporter 2, but it’s a damned lot closer than the first the creators tightened up the story while reinstating him as a professional transporter like the first, he also had a new and much better female counterpart, and Frank is still as bad-ass as ever. Three years later we reach Transporter 3, which manages to bring in $108m worldwide, continuing and growing on the success of the second film. This went on to generate a comparatively massive $85m worldwide, and frankly (ha, get it) a much better film plot: Frank on a mission to save the boy. So the foundations were set for a typical action film the studio decided to take a new direction on Transporter 2 where Frank isn’t technically a transporter of goods but is now emotionally bound to a six year old. Let’s look at the facts from the first film: Jason Statham as Frank was an OK macho lead (but just OK), his female counterpart was incredibly annoying, and the story didn’t do enough to carry itself – but most importantly: things blew up and people died (Explosions: six. So why did the studio commit to another film, let alone two more? The Transporter started off the trilogy to the tune of $44m worldwide – not a huge sum in the grand scheme of things considering the budget was almost half of that. It’s not often that the first film in a franchise is actually the worst, mainly because studios only commit to a bankable success.
Let’s take a look at how a professional deliveryman is enough of a driver to validate three films. Meanwhile, we all get to look forward to this Statham-free Transporter Prequel Trilogy, a five-word combination that robs strawberries of their color and teaches children not to laugh.Delivering things is easy, right? Wrong. Maybe it will go the Ninja 2 route and make the first film completely obsolete. It looks like there's going to be a Mechanic 2. Statham is ready to go and German director Dennis Gansel (director of Gansel & Hretel: Hitch Wunters) is in talks to helm the film. If so, I take back everything I just said.Įither way, it's happening. Unless the whole film is about that character's awesome record player. Of all the Statham movies to sequelize, this has to be the most boring possible choice. Take him out of the picture, which Jason Statham does in the first film, and you have nothing left. The plot revolves mostly around Statham's protege, played by Ben Foster. There's basically nothing to Statham's character. I've said there's no "stock" Jason Statham film in the past, but I might be wrong when it comes to The Mechanic. What's curious is the film Statham has agreed to make: The Mechanic 2. Someone else can drive a car really fast while wearing fancy suits and letting bad guys cover their body in oil.
So Statham won't be in Transporter 4 (or 5 or 6). But it's hard to believe they were so focused on that idea that they never even asked if he was interested. The new trilogy is supposed to follow the adventures of a younger Transporter as sort of an origin story. But Statham will not appear in any of these films. Actually, it's a Transporter 4, 5, and 6. For instance, Luc Besson totally has a Transporter 4 in the works. Aside from the fact that each of his films will likely involve action at some point, it's difficult to predict what kind of movies Jason Statham will appear in next.