Nov 30, 2011

Djokovic as himself, Noel in a small role

One of my German friends informed me that the news on Djokovic's partication in EX2 was widely covered in Germany and it was reported that he's set to guest star in the movie as himself. I was concerned that he'd have some sort of a role but fortunately it doesn't seem to be the case. I still have a hard time figuring out what a tennis player will have to do with a group of mercenaries on a mission...

Earlier today Nikolette Noel tweeted that she'd be "flying to Bulgaria tonight to film a minor role in Stallone's The Expendables 2!" I don't really know who she is and her resume on IMDB is rather lean. She'll be playing Hemsworth's (Timmons) wife.
And finally Crews tweeted yestrday that he had "arrived in the United States of America". Production in Bulgaria is close to wrap up and we'll be seeing more actors return home for the holiday season before filming resumes in China.

Nov 29, 2011

New Photos of Crews, Couture & Lundgren

Found 3 new photos of EX2, enjoy!


EX2 Cast Final - Production Moving to China

Our friend Patrick (Expendables Premiere) has a source in Bulgaria close to the movie who sent him some news worth knowing:

Filming in Bulgaria should be wrapping up next week

Filming In China will take place in January for two weeks

There will be no more 'surprise' additions to the cast for the Bulgaria portion of the production 

The character of Wicks has been removed from the script which could have potentially been played by a 'known' actor (EX2 Blog's note: Patrick's source had reported previously that the cast for a character named Wicks was still open and likely to go to a known actor)

So no more surprises after Djokovic? Maybe in China?

Djokovic to Star in EX2

Novonite has reported today that world No.1 tennis player Novak Djokovic has arrived in Bulgaria to take part in the shooting of EX2. Djokovic has a minor role in the sequel and will stay in Bulgaria for a very short time.

The Bulgarian news agency further reports that the shooting of EX2 in Bulgaria will continue until Friday. Afterwards, the movie will be finished in China, where Jet Li will join the cast.

I personally don't welcome the idea and don't understand the rationality behind it. The only commonality between EX2 and Djokovic is Eastern Europe. I can't see him attract a bigger audience to drive more revenue for the movie if that is the motivation behind the casting decision.

Nov 28, 2011

Lundgren gives out some plot details in an interview

Possible Spoiler - We finally put our hands on a reliable Japanese article that confirms the interview Lundgren gave to the magazine Eiga Hiho. A link to the article was retweeted by Eiga Hiho themselves which confirms its authenticity.

Here's the snapshot of the tweet:


 





I asked one of my Japanese friends to translate the article and here it goes:

"While a sequel to "The Expendables" in which Sylvester Stallone is the leading actor and action movie fans are eagerly looking forward to seeing has begun filming, Dolph Lundgren who is part of the cast visited Japan and talked about the details in an interview with the movie magazine, “Eiga Hiho” for their January issue.

While Dolph Lundgren appears in an uncountable action movies in the U.S., he is also a Shin-Kyokushin karate fighter. He came to Japan for a special demonstration in a show at the world Karate Championships held in Tokyo in October. Mr. Ginti Kobayashi, who is the representative of the movie magazine, "Eiga Hiho" had an interview with Dolph under the cooperation of Shin-Kyokushin. Dolph talked about his career as well as the details of a sequel to "The Expendables" in the interview while he was watching the Karate tournament at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.

Among the things to note, he said that there is a scene where Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis appear together.
He revealed that the scene between those three in the sequel is comparable to the scene in the 1st movie where Schwarzenegger, Willis and Stallone appeared together and drew fans attention.

Just hearing this news, action movie fans may be so excited. But furthermore, Dolph Lundgren disclosed valuable information such as his own and Jean-Claude Van Damme’s role, and about the opening scene of the movie. Since Stallone stated that he is collecting
more action stars than the previous movie, so you can expect further surprises. How will the new miracle scene where 3 movie stars appear together be directed by director Simon West? The film is scheduled for a public release in August 2012 in the U.S. I’m looking forward to hearing the news to be published in Japan.

(by Koichi Irikura, Editorial staff)"

Now we know for sure that an interview was given in Japan where Lundgren gave out details about the plot. The interview is scheduled to be published in Jan 2012, so we can assume that by then we'll see more official news on the plot.

Further, the site admin of the fan site Ultimate Dolph has confirmed that Lundgren will be going to China...

A big thanks to my friend Elrey for finding the article and Ichiro for the translation.

Nov 27, 2011

More Details on the Opening Scene - Possible Spoiler

A German movie site has taken the original story revealed by the Japanese magazine - Eiga Hiho from their interview with Lundgren and added more details to it: Schwarzenegger will only appear in the opening scene where he's rescued in Burma by the EX team, it could be an homage to "Missing in Action". The scene at the airport that also involves Norris & Willis is where he escapes after having been rescued (Blog note: it was originally speculated that the scene at the airport would be the final battle and the closing scene). Willis then sends the EX team to a new mission, probably against Van Damme. 


The original story which was in Japanese was retrieved and translated by our group and can be found here.

I should also add that the German site gives Moviehole as their point of reference. If they indeed used the story reported by Moiviehole, after some research, it turned out that Moviehole themselves reported the story from a Japanese fan site called The Legend of Chuck Norris, who had found out about Lundgren's interview and posted it on their website, then it was taken and widely spread by Global Arnold through different Western fan sites. So I tend to conclude that the German site could be using the same story and adding their own interpretation to it.

On the other hand there was no record of Van Damme in the photos that were shot at the airport, so the assumption of Schwarzenegger being only in the opening scene and not fighting beside the EX team against Van Damme at the end might be correct.

Nov 25, 2011

The Missed Photo of Stallone, Schwarzenegger & Norris

I had not seen this picture before. It's a rare photo of Stallone, Schwarzenegger & Norris together. 

There was a series of photos that were released back in October when Schwarzenegger & Willis were shooting their scenes, but this one was missing in the collection. 

It was speculated that the series was taken while shooting the final scene and that most actors would share screen time during the final battle (with the exception of Li who will shoot his scenes in China, and maybe Van Damme/Adkins who were not captured in any of this series of photos)

Nov 24, 2011

New Lundgren Picture

Nothing big, just a new picture of Lundgren that was released today in the Bulgarian media who were reporting on a bridge being donated to the city where the famous bat cave is (rough Google translation). The guy beside Lundgren is apparently David Varod the CEO of Nu Boyana (the studio where EX2 is being shot).


Rourke talks about filming a cameo!

In an interview with The Herald-Sun Rourke says he’s “gonna do a little cameo in something.”

Interesting! the only movie filming between now and March (when he begins “The Beautiful Game”) that could use a Rourke cameo is EX2.  Is there a change of heart after he declared that he had never considered a role in EX2?

Even though I love Rourke as an actor (his performance in the 80's was out of this world), I don't care much for him to be in EX2. I know he has a strong fan base who want to see him in the sequel and they might still see their wish come true...


Nov 23, 2011

The EX2 Enigma

The enigma around the EX2 poster is starting to take some interesting proportions. There is obviously a certain effort on Millennium's part and Stallone's? through his number one fan site to make the EX2 poster pass for a forgery. This is not the first time that a piece of information is leaked through some reliable source that is directly or indirectly linked to Millennium/Nu Image or Lionsgate and then denied by the foregoing.

1-The Plot: back in May an official plot was revealed (some claimed by Nu Image) around the same time when the first teaser poster was released at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. A few days later StalloneZone on behalf of Stallone reported the plot to be fake and that a real plot would be forthcoming (6 months later we are still waiting, thank you).

2-The Cast: back in early September Millennium's official website published the official cast to only take it down 3 days later from their website, creating a huge buzz and a certain enigma.

Then in late September the French distribution company for EX2 released their own teaser poster
at the distributors congress in Lyon with the same cast .

Interestingly enough the same cast (with the addition of Hemsworth) was posted in October by sylvesterstallone.com making it official this time.

As of today Millennium has yet to post the official cast on their website... 

3- The EX2 Poster: it was first posted as an exclusivity on a movie website called JoBlo on Nov 18, 2011.

Very quickly other movie websites followed by reporting the release of the poster. A few hours later some of the websites were asked by Millennium Films to remove the poster from their sites. Millennium claimed that the poster was a forgery and could damage their product. JoBlo has nevertheless kept it on their website.

Later on Dolph Lundgren posted the poster on his Facebook stating that it was only an artwork. Terry Crews also posted it on his Facebook but when told by a fan that Millennium was asking websites to remove it, responded that the poster was "still cool"! The actors seemed clueless.

The whole thing looked like as if the poster had leaked and Millennium was trying to cover it up, or some even say that it was leaked on purpose to gauge fans opinion. And Fans did overwhelmingly welcome the poster and it was greatly received by almost all. A few days later StalloneZone claimed to have received a message from Stallone himself stating that the poster was unofficial and bogus!

I think the EX2 production/distribution companies are using what I call buzz marketing tactics to gauge fans reactions. There is a pattern that has followed since the release of the first teaser poster in Cannes. I just hope they know what they are doing and the end result will not be disappointing to fans!

Sly Confirms: EX2 Poster Unofficial

According to StalloneZone, Stallone confirmed that the poster released last week was unofficial! The official poster is far from being complete and won’t be out for several months.

I still believe that the poster was made by someone who had access to pictures taken on the set. The poster was either leaked inadvertently, or on purpose to gauge fans reactions. The other option could be that someone got a hold of some set photos and had the poster made using those. 

We'll find out depending on whether the final version of the official poster will end up looking like this:


Nov 22, 2011

Possible EX2 Story?

Global Arnold claims to have some minor spoilers about the story of EX2 which apparently came from an interview Dolph Lundgren gave to a Japanese reporter.

The story opens with a scene of Trench (Schwarzenegger) being rescued from captivity in Burma. After that Agent Church (Willis) forces the Expendables to go on a new mission.


Van Damme and Adkins were confirmed to be serving as the villains (this was already known) similar to Steve Austin's role in the first movie (this is rather contradictory to what was said about
Van Damme's role as the main villain).

There is also reportedly a scene with
Schwarzenegger, Willis and Norris sharing screen time together.

Filming in Bulgaria wraps next month ahead of a week of filming in China in January and maybe other locations yet to be confirmed (initially France was reported to be one of the possible locations).


Update Dec. 2011: Lundgren's interview has been published by Eiga Hiho in Japan, so the story spread by Global Arnold thru western fan sites is now confirmed. It's worth noting that it was originally reported to them by a Japanese fan site called The Legend of Chuck Norris.

Nov 21, 2011

Schwarzenegger in Europe

Schwarzenegger tweeted that he was in Oslo on business. Why this might be of any relevance to EX2? A while ago a Bulgarian website reported that both  Schwarzenegger & Willis would be back in mid November to shoot a few more scenes. Well, it's mid November and he's in Europe! The big question remains, is he going to shoot more or was he really done back in October. 

Nov 20, 2011

EX2 Artwork Poster



This is the first semi-official Poster of The EX2 (Expendables 2) that was exclusively reported by a movie website called JoBlo on Nov 18, 2011.

Very quickly other movie websites followed by reporting the news. A few hours later some of those websites were asked by Millennium Films (the production company) to remove the poster from their sites. Millennium claimed that the poster was a forgery and could damage their product. JoBlo has nevertheless kept it on their website.

Later on Dolph Lundgren posted the poster on his Facebook stating that it was only an artwork. Terry Crews also posted it on his Facebook but when told by a fan that Millennium was asking websites to remove it, responded that the poster was "still cool"! Did the actors know about the poster?

The whole thing looked like as if the poster had leaked and Millennium was trying to cover it up, or some even say that it was leaked on purpose to gauge fans opinion. And Fans did overwhelmingly welcome the poster and it was greatly received by almost all.

Was this a marketing coup or simply a gaffe? Time will tell...