Expendables Stunt Show and Plea for John Woo for EX3!
TAFs StaffIt's time to catch up on Expendables news! The latest box office numbers put Domestic at $83,501,148 and foreign at $201,500,00 for a whopping worldwide total of $285,001,148! With an estimated budget of $100 million, it nearly tripled that, and in Hollywood, that means prepare for more. The great Sly and Arnold fan ABKing has written a compelling argument for who should direct Expendables 3, so take it away, AB!
ABking here,
It looks like there will be an EXPENDABLES 3 judging from the boxoffice numbers so far.
Box Office Mojo is reporting that THE EXPENDABLES 2 is burning up the WORLDWIDE box-office and at the rate it is going will pass 300 million dollars in a few weeks. We ALL know how this works. LOTS of money was made so there will be an EX3.
Having said that who should direct the 3rd and final EXPENDABLES movie. There is only one man for the job in my mind and that is JOHN "THE ETERNAL BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL" WOO! Yes, that is a line from FACE/OFF arguably JOHN WOO's BEST american made film.
That action classic came out all the way back in 1997, it is time JOHN WOO had a new best movie. THE EXPENDABLES 3 can be that movie.
Sylvester Stallone directed the first film in this series and set up the world and the tone perfectly. Then they brought in SIMON "CON AIR" WEST who did a fantastic job with the legendary cast. Now, for the final film they need to up the ante so to speak and JOHN WOO can do just that. We already know who they are looking to persuade to be in the next movie and from the looks of it, it looks like an asian feel is in the making. JACKIE CHAN has all but confirmed he will be in EX3, the Maggie character will more than likely return as will JET LI. Donnie Yen seems interested. ALL these asian stars would shine in the hands of JOHN WOO!
People these days seem to underestimate what WOO can bring to the table -- I think EX3 needs to close out the series with a BANG and be different. Imagine Barney Ross throwing a canister of gasoline in the air and Trench shooting it only for an explosion to take out 20 of SEAGAL's goons....Or Jet Li and Jackie Chan fighting side by side trying to defeat Nic Cage's goons (right after Chan makes his entrance of course riding a bike into a warehouse mid air shooting a machine gun in slow motion). Maybe throw in some Maggie action to show the boys how it is done to try to one-up them....John Woo knows how to make all this look good on screen. See HARD BOILED if you don't believe me.
THE EXPENDABLES 3 is going to be the last EXPENDABLES movie and possibly the last action movie Sly and Arnold make or make together -- it must be special, it must be bold, it must be stylish, it must be different, it must bring something new to the table, it MUST be a JOHN WOO film!!!
Finally, Steve Kasan gives us the scoop on an Expendables Stunt Show that took place in Toronto recently!
On August 10, 11 & 12, the city of Toronto held their yearly Taste of the Danforth festival. It is held in Toronto's Greek town which is on a major street called Danforth. Hence the name. It started as a way to experience Greek culture where you can taste Greek food and watch liveshows. Due to tons of visitors, the festival being an actual tourist attraction, it has become one of the premiere events in Toronto.
This year, Alliance Films had a station where they were promoting the following films: The Hunger Games, ParaNorman, Lawless, and, The Expendables. In promoting these films, my stunt team, Iron Dragon, got to perform a live stage stunt show on one of the main stages in the heart of the festival.
The team consists of Tazito Garcia, Phi Huynh, Vladimir Boskovic, Hakim Mobin, Jesse Omonudo, Derek Young, Sebastian Gioia, Andrew Brooks, Simon Fletcher Li, and, myself, Steve Kasan.
Knowing that we had 3 full days of shows to perform, we had to choreograph a show where it would showcase us and stay true to the characters in The Expendables franchise. Given a script, we chose a format where selected characters from the film would face off against "Thugs". For instance, Tazito Garcia played Stallone. Vladimir played Statham. Derek played Hemsworth. Phi played Jet Li, and, Jesse was big Terry Crews. Sorry, no Arnold, Chuck Norris, or, JCVD as I would have loved to portray Arnold on stage. We played characters who best suited us and given the time frame.
Our show consisted of "scenes" taken from the first film and a few selected scenes from the second taken from the trailer such as the Church scene were Statham uses his knives, and, the sniper scene in the trailer. Another key factor was performing moves and planning a segment where it represents the characters we play on stage. For instance, since, Phi was playing Jet Li he was able to use flashy kicks and hand work against Thugs Andrew Brooks & Simon. Where as, Tazito Garcio--who is a master Capoeirista--had to be ground as Stallone by using more rugged punches & wrestling type moves. Jesse playing Terry Crews was main kept by shooting the AA12 shotgun.
It's showtime. Our first show on Friday was 640pm. The weather reports was that it was going to rain, which it did, but, when it came time for us to perform the sky cleared up. The joke was, God knew the Expendables were going on stage so he made the rain stop. We rocked the shows. The crowd absolutely loved our segments especially all the kids in the crowd watching. Actually, it was a toss up who were our biggest fans, the kids or the Cops on duty who absolutely loved it!
A great story, as mentioned, there was rain except when our shows started. For the final show on saturday, prior to us going up, it absolutely downpoured. Heavy rain and stopped just as 5 minutes we went up. The stage was filled with water puddles, but, it only made the performance that much better. With the spotlights on us, the grown up drinking crowd that arrived, all the spills, punches, kicks, slams made it better with the addition of water splashing around.
After each show, we went to the Expendables 2 Alliance Tent where we posed for pictures with fans. It was a memorable weekend and I am pretty sure we were the most talked about performance. I hope you guys will enjoy our performance. We have a website which is being constructed and also a fanpage coming soon on facebook where you can find more about us.
Steve Kasan
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