Over a decade after their last cinematic outing and seven years following spinoff Bad Grandpa, the band is finally back together and shooting on Jackass 4 is underway. The fifth installment in the incredibly popular series was originally set to release in March of this year before production was halted indefinitely due to the Coronavirus pandemic, with Johnny Knoxville and the rest of the gang now set to return to our screens in September 2021.
Jackass may have peaked in popularity 20 years ago, but the franchise is one of the most profitable properties at Paramount’s disposal, having raked in close to half a billion dollars at the box office on combined budgetary costs of just over $50 million. The films have also been the subject of a surprising amount of critical acclaim, with the very first installment the only one that doesn’t hold a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Steve-O admitted in a recent interview that Jackass 4 would address the fact that the guys are all at least in their 40s by now, and it turns out that even the seemingly indestructible crew of daredevils aren’t immune to the effects of aging. On just the second day of filming, in fact, Knoxville and Steve-O both ended up in the hospital after a stunt gone wrong, which involved them jumping onto a treadmill at full speed while wearing “band equipment (i.e.: tubas).”
That definitely sounds like Jackass, and there’s no word on whether the injuries will force shooting to be halted for any length of time, but you can guarantee that it’ll take the 49 year-old Knoxville and 46 year-old Steve-O a lot longer to recover than it used to, and this will no doubt be far from the last story we hear about on set mishaps.