Stallone brings action film 'The Expendables' to New Orleans

Stallone is filming a big action film in New Orleans with an all alpha-male cast. Here's an excerpt from the article:

""This started out as a dark comedy; it started out as a satire," Stallone said. "Then we thought, 'Let's make a really hard R' -- then I go back. It constantly was being just brutally changed. It wasn't until a week before filming that I said, 'Let's just make it this kind of movie.'"

And what is "this kind of movie"?

It's a high-adrenaline, well-muscled buddy picture in which Stallone, Jason Statham, Li and their team of mercenaries -- which includes Lundgren, mixed-martial-arts champ Randy Couture and NFL-player-turned-actor Terry Crews -- tackle the types of missions normally reserved for people whose combat boots and MREs come compliments of Uncle Sam.

Their missions come to them through a grease-monkey intermediary named Tool (played by Mickey Rourke).

"Let's say we dug up 'The Wild Bunch' and gave them one more shot," Stallone said. "These guys don't fit in this kind of world. They are 'The Expendables.' That's why they're called that."

Before the production wrapped late last week after two months in the New Orleans area, the sets for "The Expendables" sprawled all over the Louisiana Film Studios complex, a former Winn-Dixie grocery warehouse that saw its conversion into a film studio rushed along to accommodate Stallone and company.

In one section of the warehouse was the aforementioned cargo freighter deck, perched atop a 10-foot wooden platform. In another area was a set constructed to resemble the ship's cavernous cargo hold. There's also a wingless military plane somewhere, painted in the logo of the ornithology outfit that serves as the cover for the movie's mercenary characters. And, looming in the darkness outside, there's an expansive palace complex that had taken a pyrotechnic beating on previous nights.

Impressive stuff, to be sure -- but nowhere near as impressive as the film's alpha-male cast. In addition to Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews, Couture and Rourke, it also includes former pro wrestler Steve Austin and Oscar nominee Eric Roberts. There are plans for a cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, as well as a double-secret cameo from another action star whom the producers are playing coy about naming (*cough*cough*Bruce Willis*).

"We've got some tough men in this movie," Stallone said. "I mean some bad-asses, trust me. The extras -- you think I'm joking? -- we've got extras in this movie that could conquer countries. I went to Brazil and got the baddest, toughest mercenary group. .¤.¤. It's staggering. Every one of them would just take all of us and snap us like spaghetti -- and they're extras."

Earlier in the night, and for much of the previous one, Stallone spent time choreographing the film's action-packed opening sequence, in which his titular team of mercenaries settles a hostage crisis with Somali pirates in the only way their know how: loudly. "