Trivia for
The Expendables (2010) More at IMDbPro »

• Jean-Claude Van Damme was offered a role, but he turned it down claiming that there was no substance in the character. Rumor has it that Dolph Lundgren replaced him but actually the part of Scandinavian Gunnar Jensen was written by Sylvester Stallone with Lundgren in mind.
  
  
• Wesley Snipes was offered the role of Hale Ceasar but couldn't accept because, due to his tax problems, he wasn't allowed to leave the United States without the courts approval. The role was taken by Forest Whitaker and rewritten for Whitaker, but he was forced to leave the film due to a scheduling conflict. When it was announced that rapper 50 Cent was replacing Whitaker, many fans were disappointed and, after a few days, Stallone decided to cast former NFL player Terry Crews in the part.
  
  
• Ben Kingsley was considered for the role of Monroe.
  
  
• Scott Adkins was offered the role of Dan Paine.
  
  
• Stallone wanted Kurt Russell for the role of Church, but Russell turned down the offer.
  
  
• Several of the stars of this movie have acted together in other movies before; Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts were in the The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984) together. Rourke and Brittany Murphy were in Sin City (2005) together. Rourke, Roberts and Murphy were in Spun (2002), where Murphy also played Rourke's girlfriend as she does in this movie. Rourke and Sylvester Stallone acted together in the remake of Get Carter (2000). Stallone and Roberts were hero and villain respectively in The Specialist (1994). Danny Trejo acted with Roberts in Runaway Train (1985), with Rourke in Point Blank (1998), Animal Factory (2000) and Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) and with Stallone in Lock Up (1989) and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over (2003). Stallone and Dolph Lundgren were in Rocky IV (1985). Jet Li and Jason Statham starred in The One (2001) and War (2007). Li also had a fight scene with Randy Couture in Cradle 2 the Grave (2003). (Rourke and Statham will also appear together in the upcoming 13 (2010).)
  
  
• Jeffrey L. Kimball was also director of photography on Stallone's The Specialist (1994), but this is the first time he has worked with Stallone as a director.
  
  
• Jason Statham starred in Death Race (2008), a remake of Death Race 2000 (1975) which featured a young Sylvester Stallone in one of his first starring roles.
  
  
• Originally, Jet Li's character's name was listed as Kong Kao.
  
  
• Steven Seagal was asked to play a cameo but turned it down due to negative connections with producer Avi Lerner.
  
  
• West Coast Customs Street Customs have built 3 customized 1955 Ford F100s for the film. One was built for a crash scene, the second for green-screen, and the third for Stallone to keep.
  
  
• Dolph Lundgren described the film as "an old-school, kick-ass action movie where people are fighting with knives and shooting at each other."
  
  
• Sandra Bullock was rumored to have a role in the film, but revealed that she did not even know about the project. Despite the news, she did express interests in working in its possible sequel, depending on the storyline.
  
  
• During the filming of Kambakkht Ishq (2009), Sylvester Stallone considered bringing that film's co-stars Brandon Routh and Akshay Kumar into the film (particularly Kumar for his martial arts), but decided that would be too many stars.
  
  
• Producer Avi Lerner decided to cut the film down to two versions, a PG-13-rated version and an R-rated version, both of which will be screen tested to see which one will be officially released. Lerner had considered cutting down the violence because of the success of recent PG-13 action films like Live Free or Die Hard (2007). Lerner has claimed that Stallone's previous film Rambo (2008) could have been even more successful, had it not contained such extreme violence and gore.
  
  
• Kurt Russell was offered a role in this film, but turned it down as he was not interested in "ensemble acting at the moment."
  
  
• The role of Mr. Church, the man who hires the Expendables, was very difficult to cast. It was initially offered to Arnold Schwarzenegger, who declined in favor of a smaller cameo due to his political career. The role was then offered to Kurt Russell, who declined as he was not interested in "ensemble acting at the moment." Sylvester Stallone spent several months after principal photography determined to find a big action name for the part. The role was finally taken by Stallone's friend and fellow former "Planet Hollywood" co-owner Bruce Willis, who was busy filming Cop Out (2010) at the time.
  
  
• The initial budget for the film was $60 million but increased to $70-$80 million.
  
  
• On October 24th, 2009, Sylvester Stallone was joined on screen for the first time ever with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis. The scene, which took six hours to film, sets up the plot of the film.
  
  
• This film marks Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film in six years. He last appeared in Disney's Around the World in 80 Days (2004).
  
  
• Brittany Murphy's final feature film.
  
  

• SPOILER: At least four characters of the original script were cut out from the shooting draft: - Richard. Robert Knepper and Alan Tudyk were both approached for the role. Timing didn't work out for Knepper, while Tudyk was in between projects and didn't want to exhaust himself. The role was cut entirely while the movie was already being filmed. - Agent Lickson. The role was put into Sandra (Giselle Itié), who we will find out is working for INTERPOL when she starts her relationship with Ross, and has been helping the revolutionaries against Garza (David Zayas) get guns and medical attention. - Agent Will Sands. The role was intended to be very large in the first draft, was later cut down after the casting of Eric Roberts. Stallone was courting former Demolition Man (1993) co-star Denis Leary to appear, but his contract with "Rescue Me" (2004) got in the way. Stallone also tried getting John Lurie and Kevin Pollak but both declined the role as well, so it was written out entirely. - Emmanuel. The role was going to be played by Danny Trejo but it was scrapped due to time and budget constraints. Trejo's fee, as well as the costs for some of the stunt work in that scene, would've put them over, so his role was combined with that of Tool (Mickey Rourke) as story purpose and Wickham (Gary Daniels) in terms of finding Sandra's hideaway.
  
  

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