This $129M Hit Brilliantly United Mark Wahlberg & Jason Statham – And I Can’t Believe Its Sequel Was Canceled

Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham co-starred in a movie that raked in almost $130 million, and I’m still mad that it never got a sequel. Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham are some of the biggest names in the action genre today, yet they’ve rarely crossed paths throughout their careers. Out of every action role Mark Wahlberg has had and all of Jason Statham’s action movies, they only have one film in common. Pairing Wahlberg and Statham together was almost a guaranteed recipe for success, and it ended up being one of my favorite heist movies ever.

Their shared project proved that Statham and Wahlberg worked wonderfully together, but they’ve never been in the same movie since. There was a while where their first movie together seemed like it might get a direct sequel, and that the two would be able to work as co-stars again, but the second movie never panned out. I was extremely surprised to learn that the sequel was scrapped, especially considering how close it was to being made, and how good the original movie was in the first place.

The Italian Job United Mark Wahlberg & Jason Statham – What It’s About

Jason Statham and Mark Wahlberg have only ever co-starred in one movie together: the 2003 remake of The Italian Job. In that film, Wahlberg played Charlie Croker, a professional fixer, while Statham played a wheelman named Handsome Rob. They worked together along with a larger heist crew – including Charlize Theron, Seth Green, Edward Norton, and Donald Sutherland – to steal a huge amount of gold from Italian gangsters in Venice. Their first heist went smoothly, but Norton’s character double-crossed them and stole the gold, so the rest of The Italian Job follows their second heist to steal the gold from him.

As far as heist movies go, The Italian Job is one of the best. Both Wahlberg and Statham are great in it, and the rest of the cast gave great performances to back them up and create a fun dynamic between their characters. The Italian Job also features some of my favorite car chases in modern action movie history, and in Mini Coopers no less. On top of all that, The Italian Job serves as a unique way to subvert classic heist movie tropes by pitting its crew against an enemy who knows how they operate, which cemented it as one of the most unique heist movies I’ve ever seen.

The Italian Job Was A Great Vehicle For Its Action Stars

The Italian Job was a fairly successful movie: it made a healthy $176 million at the worldwide box office (via Box Office Mojo), and secured fairly high scores with both critics and audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. Where The Italian Job really succeeded, however, was in kick-starting the action careers of its main cast. Statham’s career was already off to a tremendously successful start – he starred in The Transporter in 2002 – but The Italian Job only made him an even more well-known name. Wahlberg was similarly well-known, but his action filmography only grew after 2003 with movies like Four Brothers coming just a few years later.

Why The Italian Job 2 Never Happened

Since The Italian Job was a fairly big hit, Paramount initially planned a sequel that would have been titled The Brazilian Job. As the title suggests, The Brazilian Job would have seen the same heist crew take on a job in Brazil, this time stealing diamonds. The sequel actually got fairly far into development: a full script had been written, and Paramount had allotted money to its budget, but The Brazilian Job was never filmed. Paramount reportedly lost interest in the sequel due to some internal changes and politics, and The Brazilian Job was simply forgotten.

The fact that The Italian Job never got a sequel is really disheartening to me, because it was such a great start. The Italian Job had everything going for it: a star-studded cast, an interesting plot, and a clear understanding of how to make a good heist movie. It could have been another franchise to rival Ocean’s Eleven, if it had only had a chance to make a sequel. I would have loved to see Mark Wahlberg and Jason Statham in another action movie together, and it would have been perfect if a sequel to The Italian Job ever got made.