Empire caught up with Jason Statham – aka The Stath, aka One Kick-Ass Mutha – in Cannes earlier this year, and asked him who would win in a fight between Frank Martin (The Transporter) and Crank’s hard-as-nails hitman, Chev Chelios.
Barely pausing for breath, The Stath plumped for Martin. Why? “Chelios is brown bread!”
It’s true. He is – despite spending the entire running time of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor’s bombastic thriller desperately trying to stay alive, the very last shot of Crank did indeed see Chelios fall about a thousand feet from a helicopter, thump into a parked car and then land nastily on the pavement, with the camera close-up on an eye that could only be described as bereft of life and bloodshot. Chev was indeed, as they say in EastEnders, brown bread.
Yet, a couple of weeks ago, we spoke to Neveldine/Taylor, and they announced that Crank 2 was a distinct possibility and that somehow Chelios wasn’t pushing up the daisies.
And today, that news was confirmed. Get ready for Crank 2: High Voltage!
This time, Chev will face off against a Chinese mobster who – get this – has stolen Chelios’ nearly indestructible heart and replaced it with a battery-powered model that requires jolts of electricity to keep it going. Needless to say, Chev isn’t overly happy about this development and, rather than pause to ponder why the mobster just didn’t leave him without a heart, he embarks on a rip-roaring rampage of revenge that will make the first Crank look like a Merchant Ivory film.
Well – implausible plot aside, we have to say that we’re utterly, utterly stoked about this. The first Crank was enormous fun, we’re huge fans of The Stath, and Neveldine/Taylor are twisted mofos – it’ll be a delight to see what they’ve got planned for this one.
Crank 2: High Voltage will go before the cameras after Neveldine/Taylor finish their next movie, Game, a futuristic thriller starring Gerry Butler, Michael C. Hall and Alison Lohman. That starts shooting next week in Albuquerque.