Well... It seems like groundless news about the fourth part of the nostalgic franchise "The Expendables" have come to an end, because this time not only has the filming of a new film been officially announced, but, in fact, filming has already begun.
But "The Expendables 4" will not become a full-fledged sequel to the trilogy, collecting another cabal of elderly action heroes. The new film will be a spin-off, the main character of which will be the character Jason Statham – Lee Christmas.
The action movie has three screenwriters: Max Adams ("Speed: Bus 657"), Spencer Cohen ("Decline of Civilization") and newcomer John Joseph Connelly. But the director of the film is a former stuntman Scott Waugh, whose directorial credits include a military thriller "Law of Valor" (2012) and sports dramas "Need for Speed: Need for Speed" (2014) and "6 Feet Under" (2017)
From the old gang in the caste besides Jason Statham (Transporter trilogy), are the mastermind behind the franchise Sylvester Stallone (Rambo franchise) Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator franchise) Dolph Lundgren (Universal Soldier franchise) and Randy Couture (“Anti-Terror Squad”).
But among the newcomers to the cast, not only the name of the hand-to-hand movie star is replete with Tony JAA (the Ong Bak trilogy), but also other famous actors: Fifty Cent (“Lefty”), Megan Fox (Transformers franchise) and Andy Garcia (Ocean's Eleven).
The working title of the film is "Chrismas story" (Christmas Story) and filming began in mid-September. Unfortunately, there is no news yet about the main villain of the film, who, according to the tradition of the franchise, should also have a big name in the action genre. Or will this role be given to someone registered in Hollywood? Tony JAA? What do you think?
We already somehow wrote that the production company Sylvester Stallone Balboa Productions is going to be that kind of studio. Cannon for modern times, namely, to focus on releasing adventure and action products. For example, Stallone was going to produce an action film with Iko Uvais "Corridor", about which nothing has been known for a year now. This also includes a dramatic action series with Dolph Lundgren "International".
But then there was news about the next project Balboa Productions. We are talking about a remake in the form of an eight-episode series of the classic thriller "Nighthawks" (1981) starring Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer.
Sly is not only one of the showrunners of the upcoming series, but is also involved with the script and is going to personally direct several episodes of the thriller. However, it is already known who will embody Stallone’s character on the screen - the main role has been cast Frank Grillo (“War of the Wolves 2”, “Skyline 2”, “Jiu Jitsu”), whom specialized media are already calling the most hardworking hero of modern action films.
We can only rejoice at this choice - Frank is only 56 years old, he is in excellent physical and acting shape, which means we can hope for some good action scenes.
The series should begin filming in October, with a release scheduled for summer 2022.
Former stuntman, now successful filmmaker Chad Stahelski, in fact directing exclusively four films in the franchise "John Wick" continues to recruit projects.
As a director, he has already been assigned to such titles as the remake "Highlander" and adaptation of a computer game "Ghost of Tsushima", and as a producer is working on a remake of the South Korean thriller "The Man from Nowhere" and the series "Continental".
A spy thriller has been added to Chad's existing projects "Shibumi" (Shibumi), which will be an adaptation of the 1979 novel by the pseudonymous writer Trevanyan.
The novel describes events in the near future, where greedy energy corporations control most of the Western world and send a highly trained assassin named Nikolai Hel to solve the problems. But the corporations' most terrible weapon will turn against them.
Foreign media write about this project as a 100% concluded deal, but except for Stahelski, who will produce the future action film and the stunt team 87Eleven, who was also assigned to the project, there is no information about the cast of the film or the director. It is only known that the writer himself adapts the novel to the script.
We can only keep our finger on the pulse and wait for news.
The 67-year-old icon of hand-to-hand combat is not idle either. Jackie Chanwho last year announced working on a sequel to his classic franchise "Police Story", but about which there has been no news since then.
Chan's new film will be an outright comedy with only action elements. We're talking about a movie called "On horseback" (Ride On) director and screenwriter Larry Jana, who previously filmed mostly only tearful melodramas, interrupting only once for a sports drama "My other home" (2017)
The plot tells the story of an old and useless stuntman whose main friend is his horse. Life goes smoothly for grandfather until he falls into debt dependence from local criminals. For help, the main character turns to his daughter, with whom he has not communicated for a long time, and she, together with her boyfriend, decides to help her father with his problem.
Besides Jackie Chan (“Drunk Master”, “Myth”), actors took part in the comedy Liu Haoqun (“Over the cliff”), Guo Qilin (series “My Heroic Husband”), Guo Degang (“Faces of my genes”) and others.
The film is scheduled to premiere on Chinese New Year in 2022. We just have to wait for the trailer.
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Tags: 87eleven, nighthawks, Ride On, Shibumi, The Expendables 4, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Guo Qilin, Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Dolph Lundgren, Larry Yan, Liu Haoqun, Megan Fox, Randy Couture, soap opera, Sylvester Stallone, Scott Waugh, Tony JAA, Fifty Cent, Frank Grillo, Chad Stahelski, Andy Garcia
Tags: 87eleven, nighthawks, Ride On, Shibumi, The Expendables 4, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Guo Qilin, Jason Statham, Jackie Chan, Dolph Lundgren, Larry Yan, Liu Haoqun, Megan Fox, Randy Couture, soap opera, Sylvester Stallone, Scott Waugh, Tony JAA, Fifty Cent, Frank Grillo, Chad Stahelski, Andy Garcia
So, is The Expendables coming out next Christmas?