Jason Statham Abandoned His $300 Million Action Franchise After Being Paid Peanuts
Actor Jason Statham has starred in many hit action movies like The Expendables and The Meg. There came a point where Statham was the face of his own series of thrilling films. But salary issues forced him to leave his franchise behind.
Jason Statham left this franchise for financial reasons
Statham once had his own action franchise in The Transporter films. The actor played anti-hero Frank Martin in the thrillers, who would offer to transfer goods for potential customers. According to The Numbers, the films made $315,536,842. The first film was directed by Luc Besson, who cast Statham in the role after a brief conversation. The Hobbs and Shaw star was honored to be a part of the film just based off of Besson’s involvement.
“It was an idea dreamt up by my manager who’s good mates with Luc Besson, who I’d met briefly in Los Angeles about two years ago. He was always bandying round the idea with him that I’d be good in an action film and how I’ve been an Olympic diver and done martial arts and everything,” Statham once told Phase 9.
The three Transporter movies went on to enjoy moderate success at the box-office, with the second movie being the highest grossing film. After the third Transporter flick, however, Statham saw many red flags with the upcoming Transporter sequels.
“It was obviously a great experience doing those films, and I would have loved to keep doing it. But they wanted me to sign on and do three more films without even seeing a script, and they offered me less money to do three than I’d get paid for one! So it was a business decision,” Statham confided to Vulture.
Ultimately, the Parker star went with his gut-feeling when dropping the series.
“I would have loved to have done it, but you can’t really sign on without doing a script, and to sign on for three of them? And to get paid a pittance? I just couldn’t see the value in that,” he said.
Jason Statham’s ‘Transporter’ replacement couldn’t get a hold of him
After Statham left the action franchise, The Transporter movies went to actor Ed Skrein to star in. Skrein wasn’t too familiar with the Transporter films, and only watched the movies after auditioning for the fourth movie.
“I am notoriously late to these things,” Skrein once told Variety. “I’m the guy who gets excited watching a box set 10 years after the show happened.”
Still, the Game of Thrones alum tried to get Statham’s blessings after getting the role. But the new Transporter star wasn’t able to talk to the F9 actor.
“I tried to reach out respectfully, but I couldn’t get through to him,” said Skrein. “I was a fan of his work with [director] Guy Ritchie and he was fantastic in this role, but it was important not to dwell on what he did in shaping the character.”
Although Skrein would go his own route with The Transporter, he’d take after Statham’s capacity for stunts. According to an interview Skrein did with The Wrap, Skrein did 90% of his own stunts.
“The only stuff [I didn’t do] was some wire stuff where I’m flying across the room and smashing into walls… just the really dangerous stuff,” Skrein said. “So look at me, I’m the guy who does the fun stuff, the cool stuff, and then makes my stunt guy do the painful stuff. What a horrible guy I must be to work with.”
Jason Statham’s ‘Transporter’ was secretly confirmed to be a part of Tom Cruise’s ‘Collateral’
For years, many believed that Jason Statham’s Transporter character made a cameo appearance in the Tom Cruise film Collateral. But recently, Collateral screenwriter Stuart Beattie confirmed that was the case. But he also asserted that there were some people behind the scenes who’d never admit these two worlds were connected.
“Absolutely Frank Martin of Transporter. I asked Jason about that… Yeah, absolutely. Yes, it’s canon. Same world…. the studio will never admit to that, but in my head, absolutely it’s him,” Beattie told Dark Horizons.
