Following a nearly-decade-long absence, the Expendables franchise is finally heading back to the silver screen. Back in August, it was announced that The Expendables 4 was finally moving forward, and filming kicked off a month later. Jason Statham is among the familiar faces who’s back for this latest installment, and the action star recently shared some badass photos from the Expendables 4 set of himself alongside co-star Iko Uwais.
The actor known from the Raid movies and the recently-released Snake Eyes has come aboard The Expendables 4 to play its lead villain. Naturally that means he and Jason Statham will be coming to blows during the action flick, and the latter provided a peek on Instagram at one of their fight scenes, along with the aftermath. Take a look!
Naturally Jason Statham and Iko Uwais are all business when acting out their fight scene, but once the necessary footage has been captured, these two quickly start shooting the breeze and are clearly having a good time together. Of course, the Expendables franchise has always been a great platform for spotlighting action stars, so it’s fitting that Uwais was brought aboard to show off his combat skills. His other notable credits include leading and producing Netflix’s Wu Assassins series and its upcoming follow-up movie Wu Assassins: Fistful of Vengeance, as well as cameoing in Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
While the name of Iko Uwais’ character in The Expendables 4 hasn’t been revealed yet, this individual is reportedly a former military officer who’s become a weapons dealer and built his own private army. Whatever plan he has cooking, he’ll end up clashing with Jason Statham’s Lee Christmas, the Expendables team’s knife expert who’s been part of the film series since it launched in 2010. Following The Expendables 3’s release back in 2014, Statham has kept busy on the action front with his outings as Deckard Shaw in the Fast & Furious franchise, Spy and The Meg, among other projects.
Other familiar faces returning for The Expendables 4 include Sylvester Stallone’s Barney Ross, Dolph Lundgren’s Gunner Jensen and Randy Couture’s Toll Road. In Stallone’s case, it doesn’t appear that he’ll be in the movie for that long, as he finished shooting his scenes in mid-October. As far as other newcomers go, Iko Uwais is joined by Eddie Hall, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Andy García, Sheila Shah, Jacob Scipio and Levy Tran, though their roles are also being kept secret for now. Need for Speed’s Scott Waugh is directing off a script written by Spenser Cohen, Max Adams and John Joseph Connolly.
The Expendables 4 is expected to arrive sometime in 2022; we’ll let you know when a specific release date is announced. In the meantime, find out what movies are officially slotted for next year with our 2022 release schedule.
