Sylvester Stallone & Dave Bautista Team-Up in This Action Thriller Sequel That’s in Netflix’s Top 10

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In 2013, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, two of action cinema’s biggest stars, came together for Escape Plan. Though they’d both appeared in Expendables movies, this marked the first time they were the main stars of a film together, which excited fans of the genre. While critics weren’t overly impressed (it received a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), the movie was a fun, nostalgic experience thanks to its lead actors. Escape Plan also did well financially, earning $137.3 million worldwide on a budget of $54-70 million. Its success led to a sequel, which is now gaining popularity on streaming services.

From April 13th to 19th, the movie Escape Plan 2: Hades ranked as the ninth most popular film on Netflix worldwide. It earned 3 million views and a total of 4.6 million hours of watch time. This marked the first time the film appeared in Netflix’s top 10, beating out Anaconda for the ninth position.

Sylvester Stallone Teams Up With A Different Action Star in Escape Plan 2 (But It Was Bizarre)

Arnold Schwarzenegger decided not to participate in Escape Plan 2 because he was working on other films, which meant the filmmakers needed to find another actor to star alongside Sylvester Stallone. Dave Bautista joined the project, and the movie was promoted as a pairing between him and Stallone. Although Bautista and Stallone didn’t have the same history as Stallone and Schwarzenegger, their combination still seemed appealing. By the time Escape Plan 2 was released, Bautista had become a popular and engaging action star, largely due to his role as Drax in the Marvel movies. However, the film wasn’t really focused on Stallone and Bautista as much as advertised. They shared limited screen time, and the movie actually centers around the character played by Huang Xiaoming.

As a big fan of action films, I always find it interesting to see how studios approach sequels, and with Escape Plan 2, the strategy was clearly different. The first Escape Plan did really well overseas – over 81% of its total earnings came from international markets, especially in Asia and Europe, while it only made around $25 million domestically. So, when they made the sequel, it seemed like appealing to those international audiences was the main goal. That’s why they built the film around Xiaoming’s character. Honestly, the U.S. market felt almost like an afterthought. Escape Plan 2 skipped theaters here entirely and went straight to video, while audiences in places like Russia and China got to see it on the big screen.

Although the second Escape Plan movie made financial sense, it wasn’t well-received by critics or audiences, scoring only 7% on Rotten Tomatoes. Stallone himself didn’t like how the film turned out and described the production as a bad experience. The third installment, Escape Plan 3: The Extractors, followed a similar pattern, going straight to video and getting mostly negative reviews. It’s surprising that a franchise initially built around the popular duo of Stallone and Schwarzenegger ended up as a series of low-profile direct-to-video releases. This highlights how much things have changed since their peak popularity in the 80s and 90s. If the first Escape Plan had been made when Stallone and Schwarzenegger were at their prime, it likely would have been a major blockbuster.

The movie Escape Plan 2: Hades isn’t available on Netflix in the U.S., which explains why most of its views are coming from other countries. The Escape Plan films have always been more popular internationally than in America, so it’s not surprising that viewers outside the U.S. are watching the sequel. Hopefully, they aren’t bothered by the way the movie was advertised, making it seem like Sylvester Stallone and Dave Bautista shared equal leading roles.

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2026-04-25 17:11