Those Van Damme Remakes!

Action remakes, on the whole, are few and far between. Yes Statham did The Mechanic, The Rock did Walking Tall, Samuel Jackson had a crack at Shaft, Stallone tried to do Get Carter and there are a handful of driving ones like The Italian Job, Death Race and Gone in 60 Seconds but when compared to the horror genre, for example, action doesn't get the rape and plunder treatment very often.
There's a good reason for this.
The reason is that the action genre has always been happy to have its box full of bona fide original classics and then it's a thousand imitators.
You've got a million mercenary/man on a mission movies, a million one man against a thousand nameless terrorist movies and, of course, you've got your competition/martial arts movies.
You know what you're getting and you get what you want but the best thing about all this was that the action genre was always happy to rename, recast and re-situate their films. They'd set it in a different place or, even, in a different time, they'd add a new character beat or a back story that wasn't there before and, bingo! a brand new film.

So it is with much grinding of the teeth, pulling out of hair and sheer brain-numbing, slack jawed amazement at the pointlessness of it all that I shudder to announce remakes of not just Bloodsport but also Kickboxer.
James McTiegue, the man behind V For Vendetta will helm Bloodsport with a script by Taken's Mark Kamen. It doesn't matter that there are already 4 Bloodsports, 8 Bloodfists and 4 Best of the Bests (not to mention a gazillion other similar titles), they have decided, in their infinite wisdom to still call this film Bloodsport even though it's not about Frank Dux, it's set in Australia and Rio De Janeiro and it's all about Brazil's Vale Tudo martial art.
Van Damme has apparently shown interest in appearing in the film but Kamen made this rather ridiculous, slightly pompous and rather harsh statement against that happening:
“This is a character driven, politically motivated film. It has nothing to do with splits or muscles or grudge matches and as I said, if the title were not attached to the rights, you would not associate one film with the other.” - Source: Slashfilm
SO it's NOT Bloodsport then is it??!! So DON'T call it Bloodsport!!

Which brings us to Kickboxer, of which there are already 5 in the series! It appears to be an even more pointless remake considering they are remaking Bloodsport and, let's be fair, the concepts are not so miles apart. All we know about the Kickboxer reboot right now is its director, Stephen Fung who made Tai Chi Zero.

I don't know what to think. I mean I love having more action movies and I would love to see the revitalisation of the fight-competition genre but would it be so hard to give these movies different names at the very least?

I am going to leave you with some words from Chris (with a C) who is one half of the fantastic team who bring you the simply radiant and sublime WAFU FM podcast. WHICH YOU SHOULD ALL BE LISTENING TO EVERY WEEK!
He writes:
There are certain films that you don't need the remake rights, and the name, to remake...Kickboxer is one of them. There are about 20 films that, plot wise at least, are almost identical to Kickboxer that aren't remakes. So why bother? It's not like Kickboxer is a well known instantly recognizable name unless you're a Van Damme fan...in which case you're probably not very interested in a fucking remake of Kickboxer.

And as for the guy in the comments who seems to be seriously suggesting Taylor Lautner for the lead role...shame on you, sir. Fucking shame on you. Shame....I can't believe any grown man would suggest that guy for any movie, never mind a remake of Kickboxer. God, I hate people.

~Chris

I really couldn't put it better myself (and I tried!)
- The Kick Ass Kid

EXPENDABLES 3 ROUND UP

Trying to keep up with the Expendables 3 casting rumours has become a 24/7 job as firstly, there are so many stars to choose from and secondly, so many sources of possible casting news. These include Sly's personal Twitter feed, IMDB, TheExpendablesPremiere.com, TheArnoldFans.com and, practically, every news agency under the sun.
With Stallone, Willis, Arnold and Statham all doing press tours on various other movies right now, interview snippets and sound bites have been pouring in daily.

Cold hard facts are not easy things to come by in the casting, with everyone reporting something different.
Going strictly from Sly's Twitter feed this year, what we can say for certain is that
Stallone
Lundgren
Rourke
and
Wesley Snipes will be in the cast as will new comers UFC champ Ronda Rousey and boxing star Victor Ortiz
Staying with Sly's twitter feed for the moment, he has also hinted at, but not solidly confirmed, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal, Mel Gibson, Gina Carano and even Antonio Banderas although Carano and Banderas haven't been mentioned anywhere else whereas Jackie Chan and Mel Gibson have been confirmed in other interviews, like the one below, and the Steven Seagal rumour has only been confirmed by a Bulgarian news outlet and not the star himself.
Lastly Sly said recently in an interview with TheArnoldFans.com:
"We have a great director and the best stunt coordinator in the world. I said we’re going to make this like there’s no two other Expendables and that this is the first one. And we got Mel Gibson, Nic Cage, Jackie Chan and Wesley Snipes and now I have FIVE NEW guys that you have never heard of."

This would seem an odd claim to make as inside sources claim Mel Gibson hasn't confirmed yet (Source: Cinemablend.com), Nic Cage told DenOfGeek "I'm not in Kick-Ass 2 and I don't think I'm in Expendables 3 and I like those guys, but I would say it would be highly unlikely that I'd be in that movie" and I haven't read anything official about Jackie Chan since he made his statement that he would definitely do it but only if his part was substantial.

Statham has confirmed in several interviews that he is definitely returning and as Sly's right hand man in the first two it would seem odd if he didn't.
I have read that Schwarzenegger is definitely returning but nothing concrete from Willis yet.

We are also going to assume that Jet Li, Randy Couture and Terry Crews are also back. Terry Crews says that he is and in the same interview he confirms Milla Jovovich's definite involvement, which was another long-running rumour that's been buzzing about.
IMDB lists Jovovitch and Li but, weirdly, not Couture and Crews.

There's lots of worrying news about the stupidly named, vacant eyed, bland and probably brainless nobody Kellan Lutz (who's apparently from those fucking Twilight movies) being in talks for EX3 too but I hope that's just his agent's wishful thinking (or tactic) and/or he is the young meat puppet that gets killed in the first 5 minutes like Thor's brother in EX2.

So that's about it, so far. No word yet on who will be Statham's British counterpart. There was Vinnie Jones murmurings but I still hold out hope for Darren Shahlavi.

Plotwise the film is meant to centre around either The Expendables against a young group of computer criminals, The Expendables saving the President or both. I hope the computer nerd villain storyline is just a rumour because we've already seen Die Hard 4.

So what do you think? and who would you cast?
The film is scheduled for release August 2014

- The Kick Ass Kid

ROCKY living with a new CREED

Director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B Jordan are planning, with a little help from their friends at MGM and a certain Mr.Stallone to breathe life back into the Rocky franchise in a rather ingenious way.

The plan is to make a movie, titled CREED, about Apollo Creed's grandson, to be played by the aforementioned Michael B Jordan who would be tempted to become a boxer and get trained by, none other than, Rocky himself.

Apollo Creed was originally played by Action Jackson, Carl Weathers in Rocky 1 thru 4 and the fanboy in me wants Weathers to some how appear in this film despite having been killed by Ivan Drago (Dolph Lundgren)

With any of Sly Stallone's franchises my personal preference is when he has creative control. The studios and even Sly don't seem to give him the credit he deserves. That being said any of his three franchises continuing is a plus in my book and as Stallone, himself, proved with, the very successful, part 6, there's life in the old pugilist yet.

Cue Frank Stallone and let's get this training montage started!!

- The Kick Ass Kid

Escape Plan Trailer

Here it is folks, we have got the first trailer for Arnie and Sly movie Escape Plan (formerly The Tomb) and it looks like a pure slice of awesome. A real throw back with a decent plot and Arnie and Sly battling against each other and together to get out of an insane prison.
The release date in the US is currently set for Oct 18th 2013.

Neeson's Taking $20 Million to be Taken AGAIN!

Yes apparently Taken 3 is in the works. Luc Besson and Mark Kamen, the screenwriters of the other two, have a script already well in development and rumours abound that Neeson will make the biggest pay day of his career, $20million, to return.
The second film, despite not being, exactly, the film we were all hoping it would be, only cost $20million more than Taken 1 but out grossed it by $150million, making another sequel a no-brainer for EuropaCorp and Luc Besson.
Neeson and sequel director Olivier Megaton had both said previously that there was no need for a part 3 and while I am happy they are wooing Neeson back with bundles o'moola, personally I hope they DON'T do the same for Megaton. While Transporter 3 wasn't bad at all, Columbiana was a little lackluster and Taken 2, frankly, disappointing.

SO what do people feel about the return of Bryan Mills?
I would like it if they returned to the brutality of the first film and not the compromise drivel of the second.

-The Kick Ass Kid

Jason Statham update!

Statham has been doing the rounds lately promoting his new film Hummingbird (out here in the States renamed as Redemption) which comes out this weekend June 28th.
For us here at the blog it's one of our most anticipated releases as it seems to blend Stath like action with an early 80s Bob Hoskins style gritty London movie. Cinematic gold in other words.
Here's a great interview he did for MTV where he actually goes in depth on Redemption, Fast 7, Expendables 3 and where he sees himself now.



Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

For those who have read our article 'Parker and let's get serious about Statham' you'll know that we have been supporting Statham's attempts to push his acting and work with interesting writer/director teams. It's nice, here, to see, finally, on this round of interviews, people asking him about precisely that. The slow ones will catch up, just remember we saw his genius first.

He also mentions, again, about wanting to do an action comedy and a pairing between him and Will Ferrell sounds amazing! Of course, if that doesn't work out, he could always try Jimmy Fallon with whom he stretched his comedy chops AND his arm wrestling skills recently on the late night talk-show.

and the last bit of info we have on the future of Stath is that while he may never be asked to don the tux of James Bond (because the producers are fools!), he may not have to as he has been pegged to star in a $35 million dollar British action film based on the Bulldog Drummond spy novels. Books which Ian Flemming himself said were an inspiration for Bond.

The film, Bulldog Drummond: Hero for Hire is currently on hold because they have been attempting to build a workable studio in Bahrain were some of the action set pieces will take place. Also where the producers of the film are trying to get a tasty tax rebate.

Jason, if he is involved, is probably thankful for the delay though because what with Heat, Homefront, Ex3 & Fast 7 on his plate already it would seem impossible to squeeze another film into that schedule but, we'll see! Just as long as he keeps making them, I'll keep watching them and applauding like an insane person!

- The Kick Ass Kid

New Pictures and TV Spot from Statham's Redemption (Hummingbird)

We were lucky enough to get hold of the below new photos from Jason Statham's next film Hummingbird in the UK and the disappointing name change to Redemption in the US.

Due out on the 28th of June, while the film certainly has some fight scenes in it, when I see the trailer I get very cool, early 80s Bob Hoskins, Mona Lisa vibes from it. 

Written and Directed by Steven Knight, the man behind Eastern Promises and Dirty Pretty Things I think this is just another fantastic step on Statham's journey to become the next Hoskins, Stamp or Caine. A rough and ready London boy who can handle material with emotional depth too.

Statham deniers need to shut up or move on around me, I am constantly impressed by the man. 

-The Kick Ass Kid