Sylvester Stallone would be a great villain for A Working Man 2 – if he could only break one of his oldest screen rules. While he has never held a ceremony to this effect, Stallone has essentially anointed Jason Statham as his action successor. Stallone made Statham his main co-star in The Expendables movies and also penned the screenplay for Statham’s 2013 thriller Homefront. Stallone also wrote the forthcoming A Working Man for his old pal, which adapts the gritty thriller novel Levon’s Trade by Chuck Dixon.
Levon’s Trade is the first book in the Levon Cade series, which has twelve entries as of 2024. The trailer for A Working Man makes it look like another hit for Statham, so the film carries some franchise potential. The second novel Levon’s Night could give Statham his very own take on Die Hard, where Cade is forced to fight a team of mercenaries during a snowstorm. What’s interesting about A Working Man is that Stallone didn’t take an onscreen role, despite the film featuring some plum characters, like Levon’s blind mentor Gunny (played by David Harbour).
Sylvester Stallone Should Play A Working Man 2’s Main Villain
Levon’s Night features a nasty antagonist part for Stallone
While Stallone has found TV success with Tulsa King, he isn’t faring as well with movies. His most recent action films Armor and Alarum both scored 0% on Rotten Tomatoes and largely bypᴀssed theaters. The star could use a movie hit, and signing up for a potential Working Man 2 could be just the ticket. ᴀssuming a sequel would go in the same order as the books, Levon’s Night has a truly vicious bad guy role Stallone could nail.
The sequel novel involves Cade and his daughter living in peace in an isolated community in Maine – until the night a group of heavily armed thieves turn up looking for a hidden stash of millions. This group is a merciless bunch, often torturing a loved one in front of the people they want information from, feeling this will earn them more honest answers. Stallone would be a perfect fit for the steely head of this group, and having Sly face off against Statham would make A Working Man 2 feel like a true event.
Stallone Vs Statham Would Be A Great Reverse Of Their Expendables Relationship
A Working Man 2 could give Statham’s Levon a genuine threat
Fun as movies like The Beekeeper or Operation Fortune are, they lacked memorable villains for Statham’s characters to battle. The same could be said of Levon’s Trade, where most of the gangsters Cade fights don’t present a huge challenge; that said, the adaptation A Working Man might have fixed that issue. Either way, casting Stallone as the chief villain from Levon’s Night sounds like an ideal hook for a sequel. The star himself could bring some extra depth to the somewhat thinly sketched role too.
|
The Expendables Franchise |
Budget |
Box Office |
Rotten Tomatoes Rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
The Expendables (2010) |
$82 Million |
$268,268,174 |
42% |
|
The Expendables 2 (2012) |
$100 Million |
$311,979,25 |
67% |
|
Expendables 3 (2014) |
$100 Million |
$209,461,378 |
32% |
|
Expend4bles (2023) |
$100 Million |
$51,133,603 |
14% |
Pitting Statham against Stallone would also be the inverse of their chummy Expendables friendship. The chumminess between Stallone’s Barney and Statham’s Christmas gave that action saga its soul, with the two constantly exchanging macho banter while occasionally opening up about their feelings. One of the few effective elements of The Expendables 4 involved Christmas mourning Barney after his supposed death, which loaned the sequel some badly needed depth.
A true villain is the kind of role Stallone has shied away from, but given how menacing he can be in his heroic roles, it would be intriguing to watch him channel that intensity into a bad guy…
That’s why it would be fun to flip that dynamic and make them mortal enemies in A Working Man 2. Stallone hasn’t played a true villain in a very long time, and the mercenary leader from Levon’s Night is about as irredeemable as an antagonist can get. This is the kind of role Stallone has shied away from, but given how menacing he can be in his heroic roles (like Rambo or Cobra), it would be intriguing to watch him channel that intensity into a bad guy.
A Working Man 2 Could Break Stallone’s No Death Rule After 50 Years
Stallone believes audiences hate watching their heroes die
In the Netflix documentary Sly, the star remembers a disagreement he had with director Norman Jewison while filming F.I.S.T. This gritty 1978 thriller was one of Stallone’s follow-ups to Rocky, where he disagreed with Jewison about his union leader character getting gunned down in the finale. Jewison overruled his star, so the film ends on a downer note. Ever since F.I.S.T., Stallone has refused to die onscreen and has essentially kept that vow since 1978.
Sylvester Stallone originally planned to turn the Levon Cade novels into a TV series.
If he plays the bad guy in A Working Man 2, Stallone is going to have to break his no-death habit. If the sequel is true to Levon’s Night, there’s no way Cade would allow such a monster to escape or get arrested, so death would be the only option. If Stallone does decide to finally break his ironclad rule, it makes sense he would allow his action protégé to deliver the killing blow. Still, a sequel is a long way off being confirmed, so this team-up is currently a pipedream.
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Jason Statham
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Sylvester Stallone
