They don’t really make movies like “Crank” (2006) and “Crank: High Voltage,” its 2009 sequel, these days. Provocative, vulgar, and unbelievably over the top, it’s hard to determine whether their outrageous action ideas originated from science fiction, Saturday morning cartoons, or something even more extreme. Both films, which are currently streaming on Peacock, intentionally prioritize firsthand thrills over immersive storytelling, and in that regard, they certainly deliver.

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Both movies feature Jason Statham as Chev Chelios, a hitman who becomes the target of vengeful members of the Los Angeles underworld. They devise deviously ridiculous revenge schemes that amount to ticking time-bomb death sentences. In “Crank,” Chev is injected with an exotic substance that slows his heart and will kill him unless he keeps his adrenaline levels high. In “Crank: High Voltage,” the stakes escalate to even sillier heights: Chev’s heart is replaced with an artificial device that requires periodic jolts of pure electricity to keep ticking.

Neither “Crank” film achieved blockbuster success at the box office, but they cultivated a devoted audience that truly appreciated their disregard for movie conventions and good taste, even by R-rated standards. Similar to the Farrelly brothers’ “There’s Something About Mary” in 1998, the “Crank” movies delighted in pushing boundaries of every kind, including the audience’s willingness to suspend disbelief for Statham’s athletic and audacious performances.

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Will They Ever Make a Third “Crank” Film?
Almost everyone involved in making the “Crank” films, including Statham, has expressed interest in reviving the franchise with a third installment at some point. However, discussion about a potential “Crank 3” has quieted down in recent years. “We’ve been talking for years about ‘Crank 3’,” Statham optimistically told Entertainment Weekly in 2015, expressing his admiration for the writing-directing duo Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.

“The first ‘Crank,’ for me, was such a great experience,” Statham said. “It’s a wacky few weeks that you have with such talented directors. There are no rules when you’re doing the ‘Crank’ movies. We just keep going: ‘How are we going to get this off the ground?’ They have a loose idea [for ‘Crank 3’]. They haven’t written the script.”

More recently, Taylor shed some light on how the changing entertainment landscape makes a third “Crank” movie not impossible, but certainly a more delicate proposition than in the past. “I don’t think you could make ‘Crank’ in today’s climate,” he confided to Comicbook.com in 2018, citing the first two films’ “disrespectful, politically incorrect quality” as a tough sell in Hollywood, with more than a decade separating his 2018 remarks from the original “Crank.”

“The one thing that I won’t do is sort of like a cheap, boring, tame version of the ‘Crank’ movie,” he added. “There have been opportunities to do that, and there have definitely been opportunities to just, for purely financial reasons, make a version that I think ‘Crank’ fans would find lame. I’m just not going to do it. There are a lot of ideas for it. There are a lot of great ideas for a ‘Crank’ movie, but it’s got to be cool. Everybody’s head’s got to be in the right place. It has to be made for the right reasons. It’s got to be creatively driven.”

Since then, the buzz surrounding a potential “Crank 3” has significantly diminished. However, despite Hollywood’s recent reluctance to embrace entertainment without surge protection for shock value, Taylor has managed to deliver a few OMG moments through other projects. He directed Christopher Meloni through two seasons of SYFY’s wildly eccentric adult comedy “Happy!” (2017-2019), while writing or co-writing the majority of the series’ outrageously raunchy episodes.

Where to Stream the First 2 “Crank” Movies
It’s challenging to surpass a sequel that features a guy with a draining battery for a heart. But if “Crank: High Voltage” ends up being the last “Crank” film, at least it leaves the franchise humming at its highest possible frequency. You can currently stream both “Crank” and “Crank: High Voltage” on Peacock. Also, mark your calendar for May 19 when Statham is set to reprise his role as Deckard Shaw in “Fast X” (get tickets now!).