Willis out, Ford in for Expendables 3

More importantly, it looks like Stallone's finally done with Willis' burnout attitude.

Pretty sure Bruce Willis is waaaaay beyond the point of possible career failure. The guy has a fabillion dollars and was in Die Hard. He wins.

Theres a possibility that it wasnt a shot to Bruce Willis

With Harrison Ford being one of my favorite actors, this is fucking excellent news. But Willis is also one of my favorites, and it's quite disheartening to see him give fewer and fewer shits about what he does these days. He has almost completely thrown his career down the toilet. Anyone who's seen the latest Die Hard knows what I'm talking about. He was fantastic in Looper but I'm beginning to think that was a fluke, because everything else he's done in the last few years has him acting very bored and disinterested throughout.

It's also sad to see Stallone (presumably) talking about one of his long-time friends like that. Willis must really be having some issues.

Yet Stallone is still in the film "sigh"

Does anyone else get the irony of Stallone calling someone lazy and (most of all) greedy?

Willis was one of the best parts of that second movie.

#TeamWillis

I really enjoyed Expendables 2. 85% stupid action, 14% stupid story, 1% stupid one-liners, a perfect mix action movie for me.

Eh, whatever. Not a big fan of the Expendables series. So long as Willis' still sticking on for Sin City 2--and can maybe put in some effort--then fuck everything else <3

@jimmyfenix said:

Technically, Expendables was Stallone's baby to begin with.

No, I don't get it. Stallone has proven to bust his ass and really care about his projects, especially with everything he's done since Rocky 6. He also personally funded some of the first Expendables, and all of the main actors, including himself, took reduced pay to ensure it could get the budget they wanted for it. Obviously he still made a shitload of money off of it, but that's hardly what I could call greedy. Not saying he hasn't pulled some shit over the course of his career, but compared to Willis, who has been phoning in most of his roles for years, I don't think he's far off base from calling out Willis.

love Expendables.

big DUMB 80's style action movies done right

After watching the opening of Expendables 2, I thought how will the next hour and a half top that? Well it did.

This is the internet, get out of here with that kind of thinking, young person!

CALL THE COBRA FUGITIVE

Maybe not recently, but way back in the 80's and 90's he was a serious douche.

@stonyman65: Time changes people

Yeah get that bastard out there. Getting all these actors together to make films he and many others have wanted done since the 80's! Damn him being awesome and being in them as well as busting his ass to make them.

Definitely, but it seems like he was humbled after falling down the DTV hole. Bruce Willis is nearly there right now, shitting out films for 50 Cent.

The Willis announcement was followed immediately by the greed tweet. Besides, Stallone's representatives confirmed it was aimed at Willis. huffpost

The average age of this cast just jumped 30 years.

@onekillwonder_: I'm thinking Willis ducking out of Expendables 3 was him trying to win back some respectability for his latter-day career. Then I saw Die Hard 6 get announced, i.e. "Die Hardest," and that theory of mine went out the window.

I think it's more likely that Stallone doesn't want him in the movie because of his shitty attitude rather than him opting out.

Willis was saying he wanted to do another DH trilogy since the fourth came out, so the announcement of the sixth is hardly surprising. I didn't know you were being serious about the "Die Hardest" name, though. I just looked it up...haha, I actually really like that name. But I also like the naming convention of "take a well-known phrase with the word 'die' in it and just put 'hard' at the end" that they've used the past two movies. This is their last chance to redeem the series. I love Live Free or Die Hard, but it surely had problems. DH5, on the other hand, was utter shit and had none of the qualities the series is known for. They need a better writer and director (who ideally would be John McTiernan, but I think he's still in jail) and it needs to be more grounded and violent.

Isn't Harrison Ford looking kind of old now? Like, older than all of these guys?

I guess Schwarzenegger was looking kind of old, too. Ah, well. Expendables 1 and 2 were good action movies.

On the topic of Willis, I saw some of A Good Day to Die Hard a few days ago. You know when there's bad AI in video games and you can just stand around a corner with a machine gun and shoot them as they run around that corner, getting a pile of bodies sitting there? Well, there was a part in this movie where Bruce Willis stood around a corner with a machine gun (whose magazine was impossibly large, surprise) shooting them all down in the same manner. It was kind of funny, but at the same time it was really, really sad. It wasn't cool. It was sad. And I think that Live Free or Die Hard is a pretty good action movie.

EDIT: OK yeah. Ford is looking old.

Ha! You know what, God bless the man for getting paid tens of millions to star in action movies at age 60. I didn't see Good Day to Die Hard and I sure as shit won't see Die freaking Hardest. It's like they don't exist. I'll just keep enjoying Die Hard 1 and (to a lesser extent) Died Hard 2 and continue on my merry way.

@onekillwonder_: The problem with DH nowadays is the original's template has been copied so many times, new iterations of the franchise suffer right alongside the copycats.

I love Expendables, but even I have to admit that they need some younger blood in there. Karl Urban, Vin Diesel, The Rock, at this point anybody under 50 would be more than welcome for the franchise.

That being said, I can see Harrison fitting in pretty well with aging action motif they've got going on. Sucks to see Willis go, but if he's being a dick, that can't be helped.

As someone who's a far bigger fan of Ford than Willis I am somewhat excited about this.

...that said, I only mildly enjoyed the expendables 2 and didn't see 1 so meh

Well, Milla Jovovich has been heavily rumored for awhile, and Stallone was just asking for suggestions for young, tough actresses on twitter. Possibly to help launch that female Expendables spin-off that's been longed talked about.

I think Die Hard could still get away with it, being that the series is the innovator of the formula. It is assumed this is going to be the very last DH movie, so it should just focus on what the franchise is all about. A reasonably normal guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, with a really well-done villain and a good balance between gritty, violent action and meaningful exposition. The plot should just raise the stakes and make it more personal, and should emphasize on what makes John McClane such a great character. It should really feel like THE last DH movie. Willis was basically just doing a very poor imitation of McClane in 5, and it felt incredibly forced, and the movie overall was way more over-the-top than the series has ever been, which considering all of the other sequels, is really saying something.

Harrison Ford in Expendables 3? Holy shit. Sold!

Considering that the Expendables movies have been bad, adding the mumbling old guy to the mix can't make it any worse.

Stallone also said on Twitter that Steven Seagal may be interested as well. Would love to see Seagal as a villain. He was actually great in Machete.

Up until 'A Good Day to Die Hard', all of the Die Hard films have been great.

Live Free, the unrated edition, was fucking awesome. I could see 'A Good Day..' winding up as the forgotten one if the next one manages to be good. And if I've gotta choose between Sly or Willis...I'm choosing Willis. Easy.

I'm pretty psyched to hear about Ford, though.

Harrison Ford's on board? Great!

I've still never seen either of the Expendables movies. Maybe I should fix that.

Stallone is 67, Chuck Norris is 73, Swarzenegger is 66, and Ford is 71. He is similarly old.

Weird. This is the second time ive heard bad things about Bruce Willis.

I assume it's his attitude. That's a real shame, I used to respect the guy. Guess several of these old action heroes are just becoming grumpy old men. Ehh... in a way most of them have earned that so whatever haha

Yeah, but I don't remember any of them looking that old in The Expendables. Special Effects, I guess.

I wanna know if these guys are still going to make action movies when they're like 85. I guess Robert Duvall made a Western or two some time ago, so it's possible but I'd just like to see some new people playing good action movie roles.

Stallone wrote both First Blood and Rocky--along with their fairly uneven sequels--so he's alright with me. Those are some truly great movies. I've always liked Willis as well, but I'm betting he just didn't want to take the sort of pay cut that Stallone needed him to take for Expendables 3. If everyone got their usual salary, those movies would never get made.

Greedy is a tough argument to make against anyone here, though. If Willis wants more pay, Stallone shouldn't take it so personally. Then again, nobody knows the specifics, and maybe he has a right to be angry.

Side note: Escape Plan looks completely fucking awesome.

@onekillwonder_: @yummylee IMO there's a dearth of good action flicks today due to a huge gap from the action stars of the 80s to what we have today. Who has stepped into the action-guy role? and I don't mean the oldsters rehashing past glories. Statham, maybe? Or is the action hero an antiquated notion? The Rock is one guy who could have a franchise built around him. Surprisingly versatile actor, charm for miles, and of course has an action-dude look.

Do you guys have any recommendations for a kick-ass action flick in the meantime? The last good one I saw was The Raid. Awesome, totally loved it. Also got into some early Jackie Chan and Ton Jaa and enjoyed those, too. But in terms of "American" action movies in the realm of Die Hard, Predator, Lethal Weapon, etc, I'm hard-pressed to think of a good one. Would like to see Olympus Has Fallen, but nothing else out there calls to me.

Statham is this generation's major action star for sure, in same way that Arnold and Stallone were in their day. But like you said, the "action hero" concept isn't nearly as popular as it was back then, so he's not some pop culture-transcending icon. Action movie-ass action movies only appeal to the people who still really care about them. Enough people care for them to still get made and be profitable, but not enough for them to blow up into something huge. Dwayne Johnson is excellent as well, and I would love for him to have his own franchise. I would fucking kill for a Rundown sequel!

I haven't seen Olympus as Fallen but have heard good things. I've also heard Dead Man Down with Colin Farrel was good. I would recommend Dredd, if you haven't seen it already. It's not real heavy or flashy with its action, but it is ultraviolent and decidedly old-school with its approach. The new Riddick looks pretty awesome, too. But yeah man, a lot of movies like that just aren't getting made anymore. I still really enjoy, and in a few cases totally love the big budget blockbusters, but I like some variety in the type of action movies available.

Sly's Twitter assistant is pretty amusing

I'm in no matter who Sly gets, but considering how little of a role Bruce had in both the first ones, this is no great loss, and if it means fitting in another action star, all the better!

But really now. Steven Seagal has got to get in on this at some point. That's all I really want.

I want to see him in a karaoke scene.

So I read an article earlier that said the whole sticking point for Willis was that he was being paid $3 million for four days of work and was demanding a million dollar raise. Nobody else was having that, and when Willis refused to relent, they let him go and managed to sign Ford in his place almost immediately.

Both the Expendables movies were terrible and I'm a bit surprised to see how many GB users are praising them. It doesn't matter how many stars they get in the picture as long as the action scenes are directed/edited lousy.

If you want to see a good recent action movie then watch The Raid or Dredd, even though they have close to identical plots. They both blow The Expendables out of the water.

I strongly disagree with people saying that Willis is past his prime now. He was great in Looper and Moonrise Kiingdom. The real problem is that he does a lot of shitty movies that would still suck no matter how hard he tried to carry them on his back. The Expendables 3 will probably fall into that category, by the way.

I thought the first movie was boring and cliched in a horrible way. I thought there would be at least a few scenes that were just funny in their stupidity but no, it was just boring throughout.

Did not see the second one, don't care about the third one. Maybe if they introduced time travel and made them completely ludicrous I'd check them out but as it stands I just can't watch Statham play himself for the 100th time.

As much as I really like Bruce Willis, that latest Die Hard was a piece of shit. I mean people complain about Die Hard 4 but that was a perfect mix of action and goofy situations with Bruce Willis giving clever one liners. A Good Day to Die Hard was just this train wreck of awkward action scenes and terrible, terrible dialog.

I'm a big fan of Harrison Ford and I hope he gets to play a big part of the movie.