With multiple websites this morning picking up on the fact that an Internet campaign is fiercely underway to entice John Woo to direct The Expendables 3, we got to thinking about how awesome an idea this would actually be. Given the fairly middling returns of the first two films, inviting the heralded – and, admittedly, oft-criticised – action director into the fray will, above all else, have interesting results.
Here’s our 7 reasons why John Woo should direct the third Expendables film, which is all-but confirmed, given that the second film is gearing up to gross $300m worldwide in no time at all.
1. “A John Woo Film…”
Few will argue with the fact that the first two Expendables films were directed with a sure anonymity; there was no personality to the direction beyond Sylvester Stallone – who helmed the first film – opting for a relatively generic level of grit, emphasised by headache-inducing “shaky cam”. For The Expendables 2, Simon West was brought on board, a maddeningly inconsistent choice, and his job largely consisting of undoing everything in Sly’s direction that people complained about. The result was a film less of a pain to watch, but it still crucially lacked energy and a real strong, vocal charge at its forefront.
A John Woo film, by comparison, is unequivocally an “event” film of sorts, which one can’t really say about Stallone – who kept his directing credit advertised to a minimum – or the guy who directed Con Air, but also blessed us with cinematic atrocities like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and The General’s Daughter. While Woo’s films have hardly all been excellent, the man’s films are something that generate buzz by name alone, and in a business that’s all about box office, that’s a very important thing. If the first two films did solid business without this, the addition of Woo could be box office dynamite.
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5 Comments
That would be awesome to see John Woo direct an Expendables movie! but my top choice would be none other than —-JOHN MCTIERNAN. He was dominating in Hollywood with films like “Die Hard” (1988), (not to mention “Die Hard with a Vengeance”, 1995), “Predator” (1987), and “The Hunt for Red October” (1990) – all of which launched successful franchises and saw numerous sequels…. Sure he’s career took a serious dip when he handled the disappointing The 13th Warrior (1999) and furthermore with the atrocity that was Rollerball (2002) and of course Basic (2003). And to top it all off he got into legal trouble and went to prison…still the man knows how to make a good action movie. He’s already worked with Arnie and Bruce Willis twice and isn’t the whole point of these movies to gather together all the big names from all those explosive action movies particularly from the 80′s?! Well, why not get all the different directors to do each installment too (kind of like Tom Cruise did with his “Mission: Impossible” movies). Plus, Stallone said he liked to give roles to actors who’ve been going through hard times as of late (Mickey Rourke for example….speaking of which whens Mel Gibson gonna join!!!?). Well the same should go for the directors, and McTiernan deserves another shot to redeem himself.
Good article. The only thing I disagree with is about the Rourke scene in EX1. It was not only appropriate, but tied the entire movie together. Oterwise spot on. Sly needs to woo Woo into the Expendables series.
Cool article. Huge fan of John Woo. When the second one i came out i was actually saying to everyone “Why isn’t John Woo or Robert Rodriguez directing this.” The problem John Woo had in America is he hooked up with a terrible management team that got him horrible projects to work on, plus all the censoring they did to his films. If Mr. Woo did direct this, i don’t expect it to be really really great but should be better than the first 2. The thing is they need to give John Woo more creative freedom. I would even let him and his team do up a scrip that woo feels most comfortable with. I don’t know if Mr. Woo want’s to come back to Hollywood think he’s sick of the way things are done here.
JOHN MCTIERNAN !!!!!!!!!!
@alansmithee, nice one, you are right I think they should let john woo do this, he is a good director most especially in mission imposible 2 and face off… I think he is the best.