Jason Statham on The Expendables 2: "Who the F*** Knows" Who Is in It, But It Starts Shooting "in Two Weeks"
Posted 09.12.11 by BrentJS
Sylvester Stallone's 2010 ode to he-man action movies of yore, The Expendables, was so jam-packed with action icons — from Chinese martial arts superstar Jet Li to WWE Hall of Fame wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, and everyone in between — that the build-up to The Expendables 2 has pretty much been dominated by speculation over which cast members will be returning and which new action heroes will be joining the sequel. Recent casting rumors run the full gamut of possible additions, from legends like Chuck Norris to teen-favorites like Taylor Lautner, but so far only four members of the original cast have been confirmed: Stallone, Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Statham confirmed his appearance in The Expendables 2 at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he was promoting his latest movie, Killer Elite. He went on to say that he didn't know "who the f*ck" else would be joining the cast. He did reveal, however, that the sequel will be going into production in Bulgaria "in two weeks time."
Yeah, yeah, Sly and the motley crew are gonna get together and I've been invited to the party, and I wanna go there. I had such a great time with Sly, he's a man I'm very happy to work with again.... they start in two weeks time. Literally, I'm gonna go from one — I'm making a movie with Taylor Hackford in New Orleans called Parker, I'm going straight from there to Bulgaria. That's where we're at, Expendables 2 Bulgaria.
[The cast is] not secret, but the confirmation of who's in it I can't give you. But every name in the book has been bandied around, I mean there's no one out there that hasn't done great action along the course of their career that hasn't been at some point mentioned as being in the film, so who the f*ck knows?
Obviously, if there's one man "who the f*ck knows" who'll be on the cast, it's Stallone. Though he is taking a less active role this time around — he wrote, directed, and starred in The Expendables, but Ken Kaufman and David Agosto wrote the script for The Expendables 2 and Simon West will direct. Still, it's ultimately Stallone's baby and he has said several times that he wants to bring everybody back for the sequel. That could mean the return of not only Statham, Schwarzenegger, and Willis, but also Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, and Mickey Rourke. Stallone has even hinted that "Stone Cold" might return, even though his character died in the first movie.
As far as new cast additions go, the most reliable source to date has been David Varod, CEO of Bulgaria-based NU Boyana studios. In an interview with Bulgarian news site Novinite in late-July, Varod said that The Expendables 2 would be filming in Bulgaria in September, which Statham just confirmed. Varod also mentioned that Schwarzenegger and Willis would be returning to the cast, which also turned out to be true. Assuming his predictions have been right because he's actually "in the know" about the production, then we should expect his comment about the new cast members is also true, meaning that John Travolta, Chuck Norris, and Jean-Claude Van Damme will all be joining the cast, if they haven't already.