If, when the lights came up at the end of The Expendables you sat there and thought to yourself, ‘That was all well and good, but why wasn’t there more of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis*?’ then prepare to get happy: confirming earlier rumours,the Austrian Oak and the man forever known as John McClane have locked in deals to return for the sequel, this time in “substantial roles.”
How “substantial”? Nobody’s saying just yet, but given that they showed up for a scant couple of minutes in the first movie, anything more than the length of your average ad break would probably be considered more “substantial.”
This time around, Simon West will be in the director’s chair, working from a script by David Agosto and Ken Kaufman (with input from Sly Stallone of course) and wrangling the returning likes of Sly himself, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and, assuming the rumours about him dropping out prove to be unfounded, Jet Li.
And talking of rumours about the movie, chatter persists that Jean-Claude Van Damme, Scott Adkins and the man, the legend Chuck Norris will all be joining in the fun this time around. Those three have yet to be officially announced, however. Things will start blowing up on the Expendables 2 set in October.
In related Arnie news, he's also attached to another action pic, The Last Stand, starring as a small-town sheriff who has to deal with some nasty villains headed for the Mexican border. Now Peter Stormare has signed on to play one of the bad guys.
*If, however, your first thought was, ‘Why were they even in it?’ or 'That was rubbish!' prepare to get unhappy.