Although Arnold did not do red (actually black) carpet interviews for online press THIS TIME, we were still very happy to see him attend the Expendables 3 Hollywood premiere. Schwarzenegger was not on the “Who’s Coming” call sheet which we received a couple of weeks ago so we were pleasantly surprised that he did still come out! And even though Arnold only had time to do television network interviews, TheArnoldFans would not go unnoticed by our favorite action hero. After Arnold greeted the fans with autographs and handshakes, and before he would enter the theater, I was greeted with a mighty smile and thumbs up for our support on the red carpet. That’s right, this is my thumb in the lower left as we exchange a battle of who’s thumb is more manly. I lost BIG TIME!
In my next report, I’ll tell you who I interviewed amongst the cast, crew and Arnold’s fellow thespian friends. But of all the A-listers and mega talent on the carpet who stood before my microphone, I must say my favorite people to interview this night were the Expendables 3 writers: Katrin Benedikt and Creighton Rothenberger. This married writing couple were so friendly and pumped for this big night that they were bubbling over with hidden script gems.
One cool thing I unearthed was hearing about an extended Schwarzenegger scene, which was written but didn’t make it into the final film. Read on as it’s not a spoiler but it might make more sense to read or reread this after you see the film in theaters this weekend.
Rothenberger: Yes, after Sly gets out of the water and he goes back to the hanger. We had a scene where Sly gets ambushed by a bunch of guys and Arnold takes them all out. He (Trench Mauser) says, "I see you got friends." Arnold blasts: BOOM, BOOM, BOOM... "Now, dead friends." Not everything we wrote made it in or you'd have a four hour movie.
Benedikt: And there's a line too where Arnold is standing by the fuel and he's smoking and Sly says, "I can't believe you're smoking next to a fuel tank," and Arnold says, "That's the least of my problems." So there were little lines like that that got tweaked or cut out.
But perhaps the coolest thing they revealed to TheArnoldFans is the film’s bloodiest action scene to get “cut” from the film for the PG-13 rating.
Benedikt: Oh, I'll tell you. We had a scene where Jason Statham got to use one of the villain's big giant knives.
Rothenberger: Yeah, well, he has a knife fight with someone who had a bigger knife. What was the set-up line?
Benedikt: Yes, I know because this was my thing. At the end, in essence, he takes the larger knife from the villain and cleaves the villain in half where his body falls like this (spits) and his body falls down and Statham says, "oh, what do you know, size does matter." It was a cheesy line but it actually worked and paid off there. It was a very gory moment. But we're hearing the blu-ray is going to be R and it will be something so different that what we're seeing in the theater.
We're not sure if this scene was filmed but when we spoke to the director of Expendables 3, Patrick Hughes told us of a similar Jason Statham sequence that he shot when we asked him what gory scene he wished remained in the film. Is it possible this is the same scene only described differently from each source or are these two entirely different Jason Statham gory fight scenes?
Patrick Hughes: Hmmm, I think Jason's kill. Jason's fight scene. There was a knife into the neck and then a kick to the head into the wall with the knife. That will make it into the R rated DVD.
Expendables 3 opens TONIGHT: August 14th! Have fun and tell us what you think of the all new Arnold performance and film! If you were a bad guy and illegally downloaded, you owe Arnold 1,000 push-ups and a MINIMUM of TWO full-priced EX3 theatrical viewings to contribute to the opening weekend box office!
