The Expendables franchise has always been a who’s who of the entire action movie genre. From a core cast that includes Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, and Jason Statham, to cameo appearances from everybody from Chuck Norris to Bruce Willis, if you’re an action star, there’s a place for you in this franchise. And the upcoming Expendables 4 just added the perfect name by bringing in The Raid’s Iko Uwais to play the story’s villain.
While we don’t know much about what The Expendables 4 is actually about, Deadline is reporting that Iko Uwais is set to play a former soldier who has become an arms dealer and has amassed his own private army. This army will, of course, be sent up against The Expendables team led by Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham.
Iko Uwais was last seen in Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins in the role of Hard Master, one of those that trained Henry Golding’s Snake Eyes. However, he’s best known for his role in The Raid, generally regarded as one of the best modern action films in existence.
The Expendables 4 is currently in production and we know that in addition to the core cast of Stallone, Statham, Dolph Lundgren, and Randy Couture, the movie will see the addition of Megan Fox, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, and Tony Jaa.
With the addition of both Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais it feels like there’s really going to be an opportunity here to up the action in a big way. Perhaps we’ll see the two of them go against each other, which would be awesome.
While the first three Expendables movies were successful, plans for a fourth movie originally fell apart. For quite some time it didn’t appear that a new movie would ever actually be coming. But one should never really count out Sylvester Stallone. He brought back Rocky Balboa and Rambo when we thought both those stories were over. He even recently put together a Director’s Cut of fan-favorite Rocky IV, seemingly just because he felt like it. When Stallone gets an idea he’s committed to, it happens.
And so, when he got an idea to make a fourth Expendables movie, it happened. With the description of who the villain will be, we have a bit better picture of the film as a whole, though how the various new characters will fit in is still a mystery. They could just end up being part of the team, which has seen some characters rotate in and out over the years.
One wonders if there will be even more Expendables 4 casting announcements. Considering the main villain was just revealed long after production had started, there’s a strong possibility that even more is being kept under wraps.
