Joe Carnahan Says We Were Robbed of an A-Team Trilogy
Built to kickstart a franchise, The A-Team never got its sequels — and director Joe Carnahan blames a botched marketing push for derailing what he says should have been a trilogy.
It has been more than 15 years since The A-Team movie exploded out of a shipping container, and Joe Carnahan still wants the sequels that never happened. He is not subtle about it either.
The one that got away
Carnahan looked back on his 2010 update of the 80s series and made it plain: the rollout did not do the film any favors. As he put it:
'This is one of those movies where we screwed up the marketing. We should have made three of these.'
He also framed it as his closest brush with capes and powers, saying it was
'as close to me making a superhero film' as we are likely to get.
What the movie did (and did not) do
The A-Team pulled together an ace lineup and aimed squarely at breezy, blow-stuff-up summer fun. Reviews were mixed, and the numbers landed in that awkward middle: $177 million worldwide on a $110 million budget. Not a flop, not a franchise launcher either.
The crew
- Liam Neeson
- Bradley Cooper
- Sharlto Copley
- Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson
- Jessica Biel
- Patrick Wilson
- and more
Carnahan loved that ensemble and singled out Rampage Jackson for stepping into B.A. Baracus with confidence. He did not tiptoe around the inevitable comparison either:
'Forget Mr T; Rampage is just a much better actor.'
He is realistic about the final product while still clearly fond of it. The movie, he says, was not the absolute best thing ever, but it was a lot of fun. There were early conversations about a second go-round, but when the box office underperformed expectations, those follow-ups quietly died.
Where Carnahan is now
Carnahan most recently delivered The Rip, an action thriller starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck that hit Netflix earlier this year and has been performing really well on the service. The setup is straightforward and nasty in a good way: a Tactical Narcotics Team tracks a cartel stash house off a tip, led by Lieutenant Dane Dumars (Damon) and Detective Sergeant J.D. Byrne (Affleck). The 'rip' — when cops seize criminal assets — is a fat $20 million, and every last bill has to be counted before anyone can leave. That locked-room pressure cooker leaves plenty of time for suspicion to spread through the team.
So, should The A-Team have become a trilogy?
I get why Carnahan is still irritated. The movie is unabashedly big, dumb fun with a killer cast, and you can feel a better campaign might have found the audience. Would three films have been too much? Honestly, I would have settled for one more heist involving a cargo plane, an armored truck, and some truly irresponsible physics.