On June 28, 2010, The New York Times posted an article by Michael Cieply called The Return of the Action Flick All Stars. In the piece, Cieply looks at The Expendables. Here are a few of the highlights…
… “The Expendables,” a relatively high-budget production from the usually low-budget operators Nu Image and Millennium Films, is beginning to look like a potential late-summer winner for Lionsgate, which is to release it on Aug. 13, after a big promotional push at the Comic-Con International fan convention in late July.
An early press screening at Lionsgate’s Santa Monica headquarters last week drew a full house and whoops in all the right places as Mr. Stallone led his hired guns on a mission to a drug-infested island.
Stuff explodes. Men die. Cigars are smoked in (short) contemplative moments in a movie whose script is credited to David Callaham and Mr. Stallone, but that owes much to precedents like “The Professionals,” “The Wild Bunch” and “The Dirty Dozen.”
“The Expendables” was wrangled from Warner Brothers, where the film, then called “Barrow,” was born about six years ago in a pitch by Mr. Callaham, who was working with the producers Basil Iwanyk of Thunder Road Pictures and Guymon Casady of Management 360.
Asked what had killed classic action films like his “Rambo” and “Rocky” series —which each eked out a respectable performance with retro-style sequels in the past few years — Mr. Stallone answered in a word: “technology.”
When stars could “Velcro their muscles on, it was over,” he said.
Mr. Stallone said he would like next to play the mobster John Gotti in a father-and-son story, and has been spending time with John Gotti Jr., trying to get a film started.
Go here to read the full article.
