Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are joining the cast of The Expendables 2. Movieweb reports that after playing cameo roles in the first Expendables, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger will have beefed up roles in the sequel with Willis taking on the role of the film’s bad guy.
Arnold Schwarzenegger meanwhile, if rumors are true, will play Trench, who in the The Expendables, was the head of a competing team of mercenaries to Sylvester Stallone’s gang. Willis and Schwarzenegger join a rumored cast that is both impressive and rather unwieldy.
Along with Sylvester Stallone the returning cast includes Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Randy Couture and Terry Crews. The new cast of The Expendables 2, along with Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger is rumored to include Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Twilight star Taylor Lautner.
Currently, Bruce Willis is hard at work on GI Joe: Retalliation in which he is playing the original GI Joe opposite young heroes Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Channing Tatum. Again per the Movieweb article, Willis will squeeze The Expendables 2 in between GI Joe and Die Hard 5, which is set for shooting early next year.
As for Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Expendables 2 will be his first major role since 2003’s Terminator: Rise of the Machines. After spending eight years in the California Governor’s mansion, Schwarzenegger will look to leave politics and personal scandals behind and dive headlong back into being an action hero.
The Expendables 2 is being directed by Simon West who knows something about big all star cast movies; he directed Con Air. West takes over for Sylvester Stallone who wrote, directed and starred in the first film. This time around all Stallone will have to do is act as the script was written by Ken Kaufman (Curious George) and first time writer David Agosto.
The premise of The Expendables 2 has three old friends coming together for a big job, attempting to open a glitzy chain restaurant in a terrorist controlled country. With the obligatory Planet Hollywood reference out of the way, what do you think of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger joining The Expendables 2?
Is this the last ditch attempt of aging action stars to remain relevant? Or, is this a savvy business move by a group of clever stars whose names still mean something at the international box office?
We will get some kind of answer to those questions when The Expendables 2 arrives in theaters next year.