Donnie Yen Rumored To Join ‘Expendables 2′ (Video)

Testosterone. If ever there was a movie that embodied the very essence of testosterone it was ‘Expendables.’ It was a lofty idea of course. Write a story about a bunch of badasses and have badass actors play the badasses.

Good luck making it happen though. Hollywood doesn’t like simple. It likes complicated. Confused. Flipped over. Messed about. And especially ‘ruined.’

Many simple, yet brilliant, ideas have died on the desk of a self-serving douchebag trying to justify his pay grade by getting involved in over his head and crippling something special.

Sylvester Stallone deserves a unique level of respect. Not only did he make a great action movie (with no titties, but we can forgive that), he put most all your childhood action heroes in it, packed it full of fight scenes and blew up everything he could with lots and lots of fire.

The ‘Expendables’ wasn’t just an action film. It was an action masterpiece.

Mankind thanked Stallone with nearly $300 million worldwide box office on a reported $80 million budget. That doesn’t even include DVD sales. Using the traditional business equation of ‘Net Earnings – Costs = Profit,’ let’s do some Hollywood math:

$300 million worldwide box office – $80 million budget = SEQUEL

A work of time, patience, relationships and, probably, massive dollars, ‘Expendables 2′ is on. And even more impressively everyone except Jet Li is back. That means you’ve got a movie with Sylvester Stallone, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger…to start.

‘Expendables 2′ is supposedly trying to extend that with John Travolta (probably choking people out with his array of wigs), Jean-Claude Van Damme (triple the Van-old), and Chuck Norris (Mr. Motherf****** Roundhouse himself).

Some will say that bringing these three in will only increase the age while not contributing to the story or action. You can be sure that when this movie drops it will also drop balls on the chins of all naysayers, much like the first movie did.

But the producers aren’t done. They still want that Asian market. And with Jet Li gone someone needs to be brought in that will guarantee China’s box office interest.

Donnie Yen has been making action flicks for over 20 years. Unfortunately, most of them were in China. He did do some work state-side though. In ‘Highlander: Endgame’ he played ‘badass Asian character that got killed off screen’ (*sigh*). And in ‘Blade II’ he played Snowman, a badass asian member of the Bloodpack that dies off screen (f*** Hollywood).

Several of Yen’s films became cult favorites in the US. But in Iron Monkey he was a co-star to the lead character and in ‘Hero’ he played…ugh…badass asian character that dies offscreen. Even if it was to Jet Li, the fact remains that Donnie Yen has never had a film vehicle he could be featured in that would gain him prominence in America.

‘Expendables 2′ could change all that. If highlighted correctly, you could see Donnie Yen generate brand new fan interest in his film career and open up opportunities for him to co-star or even lead American film productions…as badass Asian guy that dies offscreen to white co-star. Fade to black. Roll film credits. *sigh*

A taste of his awesomeness from the movie ‘Hero’: