Expendables 3: Nick Cage, Eastwood, Ford, Snipes & … Monsters?

In an interview with TotalFilm this week, Expendables 2 producer Avi Lerner let in on some casting rumors surrounding the next installment of the series (they have to keep pumping these things out before the stars’ hips begin to give way). The first big announcement is that Nicolas Cage is already signed to do some ass-kicking. Lerner is also chasing after Harrison Ford and Wesley Snipes (if he’s out of prison in time for the shoot) for roles, but the most surprising and perhaps most unlikely, is the casting choice of Clint Eastwood.

I, for one, would love to see crotchety ol’ Clint throw on a gun holster and six-shooter for the sake of nostalgia, but I have a hard time believing Clint will drop his viscerally deep dramatic offerings to play in an over-the-top shoot-em-up. But, stranger things have happened in Hollywood.

Perhaps the strangest news coming from the The Expendables 2 press junkets is Stallone’s admission that the next film will go to a different place than the previous two.

In referencing that the film will take on a different genre, Stallone gave a nod to Governor Ah-nold that the film might take something out of the former Mr. Universe’s playbook. Arnold’s dabbled in sci-fi/horror with films like Total Recall, The Terminator, Predator and The 6th Day. With the Total Recall remake in theaters now, I’m vetoing the idea of space-travel or even time-travel as the substance of the third film. The Expendables team fighting robots seems like it could fly, but my money is on the aging team taking on a bunch of alien monsters.

They’ve already saved the world twice, now it’s time to save the universe.