10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Expendables

The Expendables is a film that is filled with all of the stuff that makes guys like me shake with joy. It features a team of hard-ass mercenaries who can only be stopped by death himself. The actors filling out the team are a bit of a hodge-podge; a former football player, a former mixed martial artist, a Wushu champion, a member of the British National Diving Team, a Swedish Karate team member, and John Rambo. Terry Crews and Randy Couture are very much newcomers to the genre but veteran actors Sly Stallone, Jet Li, and Jason Statham have enough action movies to their credit that they probably have fight scenes in their sleep. It’s actually surprising to me that Stallone isn’t sitting in a rocking chair in a retirement home with a thousand yard stare from all of his experiences.

As fans of the action genre, I have a deep respect for guys like Stallone, Lundgren, and Li. None of them are in their prime anymore but there is a definite passion that you can see from their performances compared to some of the “action stars” of today’s generation. When it comes to doing excellent action movies, the generation of the 80’s and 90’s is most definitely king.

1. During the shoot, Stallone broke his tooth, ruptured his ankle and got a hairline fracture in his neck that required a metal plate. He also got bronchitis and suffered from shingles during the filming process. He jokingly said it might have been good luck to get hurt on set because he never bled while making Rhinestone or Stop or My Mom will Shoot.

2. Mickey Rourke did this movie as a favor to Sly Stallone. He said that when his career was in the real crapper back in the late 90’s, Sly offered him a role in Get Carter and even went so far to pay part of his salary. Mickey was only available for 48 hours as he was filming his role for Iron Man 2 at the time. Arnold did his cameo for free. It was his first film since Around the World in 80 Days six years earlier.

3. The role of Hale Caesar was originally intended for Wesley Snipes but he couldn’t leave the country because of his tax problems. Then the role was given to Forest Whitaker and rewritten for the actor only for Forest to leave the project due to scheduling conflict. The role was then offered to 50 Cent, who turned it down. Finally, Stallone offered the role to former NFL player Terry Crews and he accepted.

4. This is the first film Sylvester Stallone has directed since Staying Alive (1983) that didn’t involve the characters John Rambo or Rocky Balboa.

5. Eric Roberts and David Zayas play the villains in The Expendables. They have both played the character Sal Maroni in different incarnations. Roberts played him in The Dark Knight and Zayas portrayed him on the TV show Gotham.

6. The movie reunites many actors who have worked together in the past; Li and Statham (The One, War), Crews and Austin (The Longest Yard), Stallone and Lundgren (Rocky IV), Roberts and Rourke (The Pope of Greenwhich Village), Stallone and Roberts (The Specialist).

7. Several actors were offered roles and for one reason or another were not able to be in the film. Scott Adkins was offered the role taken by Steve Austin. Adkins would appear later in The Expendables 2. Jean Claude Van Damme was offered an unspecified role but turned it down. He would later appear as the villain in The Expendables 2. Wesley Snipes was unable to take a role but later appeared in The Expendables 3.

8. Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren share a fight scene in an abandoned warehouse. Li had a very similar fight scene in his 1986 film Born to Defense which featured Kurt Roland Petersson, a Swedish Karate teammate and close personal friend to Dolph Lundgren.

9. Actress Giselle Itie was actually being waterboarded during her torture scene. She wouldn’t let Stallone replace her with a stunt woman.

10. Stallone and Steve Austin thought that they would have two additional weeks to prepare for their fight scene but it got moved up in filming and they only had two hours. Needless to say, there were several mishaps and a little bit of blood spilled by both men.