Jason Statham

Jason Statham is one of the highest-paid, most bankable action movie stars in the world, with his filmography totaling over $1.5 billion worldwide. Statham was immediately identified with the movies of Guy Ritchie in his hit debut, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), with Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Moran, Vinnie Jones, and Sting, scoring $28 million globally.

Statham rejoined writer-director Ritchie to star in the crime comedy, Snatch (2000), with Brad Pitt, Benicio del Toro, Dennis Farina, Jones, and Rade Serbedzija, grossing over $83 million on a $10 million budget. After the bomb, Turn It Up (2000), with Vondie Curtis-Hall and Ja Rule, Jason Statham joined director-writer John Carpenter for his penultimate movie, Ghosts of Mars (2001), with Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Pam Grier, Clea DuVall, and Joanna Cassidy, and released by Sony Pictures Releasing.

With action star Jet Li, Statham blended action and sci-fi in director/co-writer/co-producer James Wong’s The One (2001), with Delroy Lindo and Carla Gugino, and then Statham signed up for the casting crew led by Vinnie Jones in the Barry Skolnick-directed British remake of The Longest Yard (1974), Mean Machine (2001), with David Hemmings and Jason Flemyng.

Statham had his breakthrough as an action star with the $44-grossing The Transporter (2002), directed by Cory Yuen and co-written/co-produced by Luc Besson, and with Shu Qi, Francois Berleand, Matt Schulze, and Ric Young, which spawned the sequels, Transporter 2 (2005) and Transporter 3 (2008), in which Statham continued his role as Frank Martin, with the three movies earning a combined $245 million worldwide. Under F. Gary Gray’s direction, Statham played opposite Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Edward Norton, Seth Green, Mos Def, and Donald Sutherland in the $176-million-grossing remake, The Italian Job (2003).

Jason Statham played as a co-star opposite Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, and William H. Macy in the $57-million-grossing thriller, Cellular (2004), based on a Larry Cohen story and directed by David R. Ellis for New Line Cinema. Statham reunited with filmmaker Ritchie in a disappointing project, Revolver (2005), with Ray Liotta, Vincent Pastore, Andre Benjamin, and Mark Strong, which played so badly on its initial U.K. release that it was revised by Ritchie for its 2007 U.S. release.

After starring in the little-seen drama, London (2005), with Evans, Jessica Biel, Joy Bryant, and Isla Fisher, as well as the little-seen cop drama, Chaos (2005), as well as an uncredited role in The Pink Panther (2006), Statham starred in the commercially successful mafia drama, Crank (2006), written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, with Amy Smart, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Efren Ramirez, and Dwight Yoakam, earning $43 million for Lionsgate, which backed the Staham-starring sequel, Crank: High Voltage (2009).

Another one-word-titled action movie for star Jason Statham was his reunion with co-star Jet Li, the $40-million-grossing War (2007), directed by Philip G. Atwell and co-starring John Lone, Devon Aoki, Luis Guzman, Saul Rubinek, Ryo Ishibashi, and Sung Kang. Statham starred in another box office success, the Roger Donaldson-directed heist thriller, The Bank Job (2008), with Saffron Burrows (and an uncredited Mick Jagger cameo).

Statham stepped outside his lane for a widely dismissed fantasy movie based on the Dungeon Siege video game, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007), with Leelee Sobieski, Ron Perlman, Matthew Lillard, Ray Liotta, and Burt Reynolds, and directed by Uwe Boll. The always robust director-writer Paul W. S. Anderson joined forces with Statham for the first movie in a series, Universal Pictures’ prequel to Death Race 2000 (1975), Death Race (2008), with Tyrese Gibson, Ian McShane, and Joan Allen. Statham soon joined another remake, Georgian filmmaker Géla Babluani’s 13 (2010), co-starring Sam Riley, Ray Winstone, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Alexander Skarsgård, and Mickey Rourke.

Jason Statham entered a phase of his career as an action star that involved a number of successful franchises and series, starting with his role as Lee Christmas in The Expendables (2010), The Expendables 2 (2012), The Expendables 3 (2014)—which grossed a combined $805 million worldwide–and the Scott Waugh-directed Expend4bles (2023), reuniting Statham with Sylvester Stallone, and co-starring Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, and Andy Garcia, and released by Lionsgate.

The next series Statham starred in was The Mechanic (2011), the Simon West-directed remake of the 1972 original starring Charles Bronson, co-starring Ben Foster, Tony Goldwyn, and Donald Sutherland, and making enough business for producers Chartoff-Winkler/Millennium Films and distributor CBS Films to set up a sequel, Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), with Jessica Alba, Tommy Lee Jones, and Michelle Yeoh, and out-grossing the first movie for a $125 million take.

Jason Statham’s next and most successful major franchise as co-star was his role as Deckard Shaw in Universal’s Fast & Furious 6 (2013), Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019, on which he also produced), F9 (2021), and Fast X (2023), all of which put Statham in high-intensity action with co-stars Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, John Cena, and Jordana Brewster, and all of them earning a combined $5.74 billion worldwide box office, followed by Fast X: Part 2 (2025), directed by Louis Leterrier.

Statham’s next series as a star was in the role of rescue diver Jonas Taylor in the seaborne shark-attack thrillers co-produced by Warner Bros. and Chinese co-producers, The Meg (2018), directed by Jon Turtletaub, and Meg 2: The Trench (2023), directed by Ben Wheatley, earning a combined $885 million global gross.

Jason Statham, in between these franchises, made several standalone action vehicles, including the Elliott Lester-directed, U.K.-produced Blitz (2011), with Paddy Considine, followed by the failed Aussie-accented Killer Elite (2011), co-starring Clive Owen and Robert De Niro. Statham went to China for his next actioner with director-writer Boaz Yakin and producer Lawrence Bender, Safe (2012), and then Statham joined director Taylor Hackford for the indifferently-received version of Donald Westlake’s (as Richard Stark) 19^th Parker novel, Parker (2013), with Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Bobby Cannavale, and Nick Nolte.

For British director-writer Steven Knight, Statham starred in the revenge crime drama, Hummingbird (2013) and released as Redemption in the U.S. by Roadside Attractions, followed by Statham playing a retired DEA agent in the Gary Fleder-directed thriller, Homefront (2013), written by Sylvester Stallone (who also produced) and co-starring James Franco, Winona Ryder, Kate Bosworth, and Frank Grillo. Typical of the generally poor-to-mediocre roster of action vehicles for Jason Statham during this period was the Vegas-set Wild Card (2015), with Michael Angarano, Milo Ventimiglia, Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Anne Heche, Sofia Vergara, Jason Alexander, Hope Davis, and Stanley Tucci.

Statham did better with the team of writer/producer/director Paul Feig and co-stars Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Jude Law, Bobby Cannavale, and Allison Janney in the Globes-nominated and $235-million-grossing action comedy, Spy (2015). After a long break from each other, Jason Statham rejoined filmmaker Guy Ritchie for the MGM/Miramax and UA Releasing-released heist thriller, Wrath of Man (2021), with Jeffrey Donovan, Josh Hartnett, Raul Castillo, and Eddie Marsan, and earning $104 million on a $40 million budget.

Jason Statham stepped up as star and producer alongside (again) director/writer/producer Ritchie for the Lionsgate/ Miramax spy comedy, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023), with Hugh Grant, Aubrey Plaza, Hartnett, Cary Elwes, and Marsan, which blended theatrical (Lionsgate) and streaming (Amazon Prime) release. Statham’s next action movie was another star-producer project for him, The Beekeeper (2024), directed by David Ayer, and co-starring Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Bobby Naderi, and Josh Hutcherson, and released by MGM.