It's all been kicking off, if you'll excuse the pun, with Sylvester Stallone's third foray into the Ageing Action Icon franchise that is The Expendables. Casting rumours have been thrown about like grenades of miss-information, and most recently we saw the fairly unceremonious and very public departure of Bruce Willis when he turned down $3 Million dollars for 4 days work.
But now all that wild conjecture and unverifiable info slinging can come to an end, because Lionsgate have announced the final cast list for Expendables 3, along with storyline of the movie.
Returning are Sly obviously, Jason Statham, Jet Li (perhaps in a bigger role than the few minutes he got in E2), Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Dolph Lundgren and of course Arnie. Those are your classic Expendables. They'll be facing down against Mel Gibson as bad guy Conrad Stonebanks, who formed the group with Stallone years ago but went rogue and had to be put down. Or so they thought!
Much like Mel's career, Stonebanks isn't as easy to kill as you might like, and he's back with a big hard on for vengeance against his former friend. In order to avoid being murdered by Riggs, Stallone decides to "fight old blood with new blood" and assembles a fresh new crew of Expendables who are younger and more tech savvy than their mature counterparts. Kellan Lutz from Twilight is one of them, while real life UFC fighter Ronda Rousey is another and "Vicious" Victor Ortiz is another one still.
Apparently it will "explore classic old school style versus high tech expertise", which means at some point Stallone will try to work a computer and probably hit it then it'll work, and that'll be a funny moment for us.
As well the Young Expendables, or Expendables Club Junior, there's a few more legends to enjoy in the form of Harrison Ford (taking over the "employer" role from Willis), Antonio Banderas and the newly free again Wesley Snipes.
The chance to see Snipes fight Stallone again in a Demolition Man Rematch is what's getting me up for this movie. If there's even a vague reference to that movie I'll consider it worth my money. If someone tells Stallone to enhance his calm or if Snipes asks "What's your boggle?" It won't be hard to fit in there. Stallone's even wearing the same beret!
Words by Gazz Wood
