Rourke not in IRON MAN 2, Arnie probably not in THE EXPENDABLES!

Two bits of sad news to broadcast here my fellow geeks. First up, the lowball $250,000 offer from the recession hit Marvel to Mickey Rourke to play the main villain Crymson Dynamo in IRON MAN 2, proved to be too low for the actor. He tells New York Magazine...

"Right now, we're not doing Iron Man 2," Rourke told us grimly.

Instead as we heard yesterday, he has now officially signed on to appear in THE EXPENDABLES which will shoot at the same time as Marvel's Tony Stark sequel. Rourke owes Stallone a lot. If you watched that really inspiring interview last week between Rourke and Charlie Rose you will have heard the story that Stallone paid the majority fee to get Rourke to appear in GET CARTER at the turn of the century when the studio wasn't keen on his casting choice. His role in GET CARTER was the beginning of Rourke's come back in the industry. Simply put, Rourke owes Stallone a lot and he has turned down a high profile role as a thank you to Stallone and most likely for the better paycheck. In other, kind of related news. AICN are now firmly back tracking on the Arnie in THE EXPENDABLES story we ran yesterday. It appears their source was to eager with the news and it's nowhere near official. The deciding factor seems to be the economy in Calfornia and if that improves, he will be able to get away from office for that one day of shooting that is required to get this part filmed. AICN also now say he wouldn't be playing Governor Arnold Schwarznegger but will appear as a tough guy fictional character, if by some "miracle" he finds time to shoot it. So by that I take it it's more likely not to happen. Again, Stallone has a lot of friends in the industry and I'm sure if there is any possibility of Arnie finding the time to do the movie, he will.