UPDATED: Schwarzenegger and Roberts Join Stallone's 'Expendables'
This could end up being a lot of fun
UPDATE: LatinoReview has just reported Danny Trejo has also joined the cast.
I can't help but get excited over the names Sylvester Stallone has lined up for his upcoming film The Expendables as Ain't It Cool News brings confirmation that Arnold Schwarzenegger and Eric Roberts (replacing Ben Kingsley) have just signed on to the cast which already included Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Forest Whitaker, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke.
The film is about a group of mercenaries(Stallone, Statham and Li) sent to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator to liberate the population. Their team is "expendable," hired to do jobs that no one else can or will. Filming is expected to begin in February in Costa Rica and Louisiana.
A while back word on why Jean-Claude Van Damme wouldn't be joining such a cast surfaced and if you ask me his reasoning just seemed silly. In an interview with TotalFilm (via SlashFilm) Van Damme gave the following explanation:
"Stallone gave me a part in his next movie," he told us. "But I ask him about the subject, about the story."
"He said, 'You're gonna make lots of money.' I don't want to hear that, I want to hear what was my character. He was unable to tell what it's going to be."
"[Stallone said:] 'You know, uh, well, the fighting will be good.' [So I said:] 'Sly, what is my character?' So I didn't do the movie."
Oh well, it would have been nice to see JCVD in the crowd, but I don't think the current line-up will suffer too much.
AICN reports Arnold will be shooting for one day and will be playing himself, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Roberts will play a dirty bastard CIA sob.
It would only be natural for AICN's source to be Sly himself as Stallone has often contributed and given AICN plenty of first hand information and the report goes on to say production is about a month from shooting and Stallone has been beating the script into shape, struggling to nail the right tonal balance of humor, action and emotional reality.
I am definitely excited to see how this turns out.
RSS Feed
| 5 comments so far 
news feeds