Like a pit bull that gets his testicles removed right out of the womb, The Expendables 2 is aiming for a PG-13 rating, even though the first film was a smash success despite being stamped with an R. According to an email to Aint It Cool, Sylvester Stallone is confirming that they’re headed for that rating, saying that “The PG-13 rumor is true, but before your readers pass judgment, trust me when I say this film is LARGE in every way and delivers on every level. This movie touches on many emotions which we want to share with the broadest audience possible, BUT, fear not, this Barbeque of Grand scale Ass Bashing will not leave anyone hungry…Sly” The problem is that there just aren’t many great action movies of this kind with a PG-13 rating. You’ve got to see some blood in order to give a damn, and it’s hard to take Stallone at his word that everything will be bigger except for the stuff that makes an action movie an action movie. The bottom line? This is a movie for adults that’s just been shoved into a Happy Meal box. Is it Chuck Norris‘s fault? Who knows. What’s probably happening is an increase in budget to cover the new additions and the new “bigness,” and with great money comes a greater need to hedge bets. “Many emotions which we want to share with the broadest audience possible”? Really? Now there’s no cursing, not much blood, and we have to [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

My anticipation for the original The Expendables was massive, only to be matched in size and scope by my disappointment after I actually saw the film. Stallone’s new version of Rambo was awesome, it was packed full of R-rated action movie sleaze and it wasn’t at all ashamed of being exploitation. The Expendables looked like it was going to be a continuation of that, and also a massive team-up of bitchin’ 80s action stars the likes of which we’ve never seen. It didn’t really turn out to be all that though. It was kind of lame and boring, and really it was just a Stallone and Statham team-up movie with a handful of other cameos thrown in. So I’m approaching The Expendables 2 much more cautiously. But even with lowered expectations, I can’t help but feel a little bit of a tingle watching the first teaser. I don’t know if it’s going to be the classless, take no prisoners, R-rated schlock that I’m hoping for, but at least it looks like this one is finally going to be the huge team-up of old guys that I wanted from the first. The team-up aspect is all that can be discerned from this teaser though. It’s a teaser in the truest sense, basically we get the names and head shots of the principal cast and not much else.

Next year’s The Expendables 2 is set up to be a team-up movie of the biggest action stars Hollywood has ever known. The only problem is that it looks a bit more like a senior’s circuit than it does an all-star game. Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean Claude Van Damme, and Chuck Norris are all huge stars, sure, but if you add up their combined ages you get… okay, I don’t know, I’m not going to take the time to add up their combined ages. But they’re old. Jason Statham is going to need somebody who he can fight in this thing without worrying about knocking out their dentures with an uppercut or ripping their colostomy bag with a roundhouse. Luckily for him, Variety’s Showblitz is reporting that he may have found a sparring partner. Earlier this summer Chris Hemsworth made a pretty big name for himself by very charismatically filling the shoes of the mighty Thor. He’s probably got a big Hollywood career ahead of him from this point forward. But it’s starting to look like little brother Liam is playing a quick game of catch up. Not only does he have one of the big roles in next year’s much hyped The Hunger Games, but also it looks like he’s going to be joining Stallone and company in becoming Expendable. His role in the film is currently undisclosed, but adding another high profile project to the resume has got to be big news for the young [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

When Sylvester Stallone started casting for the original The Expendables it was said to be an all-star action icon meet up. Anybody who had ever been in an action movie before, and even a lot of dudes who just slept on those guys’ couches for a couple months, were all rumored to be in the film. When all was said and done, however, it mostly just ended up being a Stallone and Jason Statham team-up movie, with a dash of Jet Li, a sprinkle of Mickey Rourke, and a very brief cameo from the other big action icons Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone. Not quite the all-star lineup people hoped for. Now that production is underway for a sequel, the rumor mill has once again been churning out hopes and dreams of an all-star action cast. Not only are Willis and Schwarzenegger supposed to have bigger roles this time around, but sources loosely associated with the project have intimated that huge names in the action genre like John Travolta, Chuck Norris, and Jean Claude Van Damme are all going to be in the cast as well.

David Varod is the CEO of a Bulgaria based film studio called Nu Boyana. This is notable because Sylvester Stallone and his new director pal Simon West are filming scenes for their upcoming sequel to Stallone’s team-up movie The Expendables in Bulgaria. This is newsworthy because Varod is claiming that some big names, not previously confirmed as being in The Expendables 2, are on their way to Bulgaria to film for the movie. When speaking to Novinite, Varod first confirmed that shooting was taking place in September, and then hinted that a lot of Hollywood stars would be moving into the country to do work, “Yes, we are definitely going to do that project. It is going to be a sequel the (sic) The Expendables. The shooting is going to take place the second week of September. The movie is on, definitely. It will be a very good thing for Bulgaria, since there are some very big stars coming.” Big stars, that makes sense. It’s long been assumed that the stars from the original film like Stallone, Jason Statham, and Mickey Rourke would return. There was even some notion that guys like Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, who only made small cameos in the first film, might return in larger roles this time. But when pressed to name off the “big stars” that would be making their way into the country, Varod named a few that could potentially be huge casting announcements.

These 20, alongside hundreds of others, redefine what it means to be a movie veteran.

We wish a Happy Birthday to the one, the only, the mover of the Earth, Chuck Norris, who turns 70 today.

Today is the 70th anniversary of a great day in our history, as you should very well know by now. If you don’t, I believe one of Chuck Norris’ beard hairs is going to impregnate your mother as penance for forgetting his birthday. On this day in 1940, Chuck Norris was born in Ryan, Oklahoma. And in honor of this great man’s date of birth, I’m using Movies We Love to celebrate one of my favorite tour de Chucks — Sidekicks.

It’s been over 3 years since we’ve last been able to rejoice about the next film project for action/comic extraordinaire Stephen Chow, and he’s now making his way into Hollywood with his new writing/directing/acting effort based on a film from Hollywood legend Bruce Lee.

Whether or not you live here in Central Texas is irrelevant, because I think we can all agree that you should be hitting up the Mondo Tees website and checking out the new line of “Badass Cinema” shirts designed by Mark Todd.

Rejoice! A Missing in Action remake is coming!

Total suck and total awesome in one package. Now all we need is Chuck Norris to make an appearance, and we’ll be golden.

Ever wanted a shirt that just screams badassery from the rooftops?

The multi hyphenated Swede is still kicking… ass, that is.

They may be over the hill, but that doesn’t mean they still wouldn’t have us running and hiding.

I enjoy it when celebrities can make fun of themselves. However, this film will not be able to survive if Van Damme and Seagal don’t portray themselves.