After Dark Films, who over the last couple of years have become well known for releasing horror films to theaters and home video,  has partnered with Dark Castle Home Entertainment to bring you a new franchise of films, this time all action based.

Aptly named After Dark Action will present a collection of original action flicks starring a myriad of established and new talent.

Like they did with their horror compilations, After Dark Films does a tremendous job of bringing  films that would otherwise not get distributed to market. Any one familiar with their previous horror films knows that we can expect some of these films to be great and some to be stinkers, but they are all usually worth a viewing.

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Next year is shaping up to be a pretty gigantic year for movies. Between Nolan’s ultimate film in the Dark Knight saga, Peter Jackson returning to the Shire with The Hobbit, and the Marvel superfilm The Avengers. One film not on that list, but sure to please the fans is the sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s action movie love letter, The Expendables.

The new film, set to have almost twice as many famous faces in the action genre, is gearing up to have a pretty big marketing campaign behind it, as the last film grossed over $274 million worldwide. This time, we can expect to see names like Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, and chinese actress Yu Nan join the cast. Here’s the synopsis.

The Expendables are back and this time it’s personal…The team is reunited when Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) enlists the Expendables to take on a seemingly simple job. The task looks like an easy paycheck for Barney and his band of old-school mercenaries. But when things go wrong and one of their own is viciously killed, the Expendables are compelled to seek revenge in hostile territory where the odds are stacked against them.

Hell-bent on payback, the crew cuts a swath of destruction through opposing forces, wreaking havoc and shutting down an unexpected threat in the nick of time — six pounds of weapons-grade plutonium; enough to change the balance of power in the world. But that’s nothing compared to the justice they serve against the villainous adversary who savagely murdered their brother. That is done the Expendables way…

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Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

• While things aren’t going so well for the Uncharted or Assassin’s Creed film adaptations, that hasn’t stopped a studio from moving forward on a film based on the classic monster game Rampage.

• The heads of action fans everywhere may just explode when they see the very first poster for The Expendables 2 featuring Norris, Van Damme, and the whole cast.

• Take a jump in a depressing time machine as you see young Tim Burton acting as normal as ever in this footage from Disney Studios circa 1980.

• It looks like the internet is seeping into mainstream media again, as The Annoying Orange was just announced to have a show coming up on Cartoon Network.

• Exactly how many times did The Force get brought up in all 6 Star Wars films? We have no idea, but here they all are.

• You may know the prime Muppets, but here is a list of the best known Muppets from around the world that you may have never heard of. Like Oscar the Grouch’s Israeli cousin.

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Now that just about every action hero from Jean-Claude Van Damme to Chuck Norris has been signed to punch and kick alongside Stallone in The Expendables 2, we can now see that some of the seasoned veterans are giving some screen time to the young up-and-comers as Knowing star Liam Hemsworth (brother of Thor, Chris), has joined the cast.

Liam, who is seeing nothing but hoge projects coming up, will have a pretty juicy part alongside some of the international actions stars joining in the fun. Here’s the report from Variety.

“The Hunger Games” star Liam Hemsworth has just been cast alongside Sylvester Stallone in Millennium Films’ action extravaganza, which will be released by Lionsgate.

Simon West is directing the star-studded sequel, which finds Stallone returning as team leader Barney Ross.

He’s expected to be joined by past co-stars Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews and Randy Couture. Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are also back to expand on their cameos from the first film. Along with Hemsworth, other newcomers to the franchise include Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris

According to reports, the film is set to start shooting next month, and will have an even bigger cast than we anticipated, with Stallone dropping names like Michael Beihn and Nicolas Cage in at the last minute.

All we know is that the film will be even bigger and more explosion-packed when it hits theaters next year.

For those of you going through action movie withdrawal, fear not, as Sylvester Stallone’s Expendables are coming back for a second round with an even more star-studded cast.

After the announcement yesterday that Chuck Norris and Jean Claude Van Damme would be joining the film, we have received awe- worthy news that both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis will have significantly expanded roles in the sequel.

Millennium Films has finally begun confirming which rumored stars will actually be showing up in the action-packed blockbuster, which will be directed by Simon (Con Air) West. An official cast list for The Expendables has made its way online, with the obvious returning stars Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and Mickey Rourke, who are all returning as part of Stallone’s mercenary crew.

Along with Jean Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris, Scott Adkins was also confirmed for the film.  It is rumored that these are not the only names that will pop up in the coming months.

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From the studio that brought you The Squid and the Whale and There Be Dragons (which you may not have heard of, but which is really fun to say in a pirate voice) comes Assassination Games.

Written by Aaron Rahsaan Thomas (Friday Night Lights) and directed by Ernie Barbarash (Hardwired), the film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as Brazil, a contract killer whose only loyalty is to his pocketbook. Flint (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) is a former assassin who quit the biz after a drug-dealer put his wife in a coma…the same drug dealer who’s just had a contract put on his head. The two enter the game for their own reasons but must form a partnership when they’re pit against criminals and dirty Interpol agents alike.

It’s been a while since we’ve seen JCVD in a straight-up action flick (he’s only 50, after all), and I’m getting a bit of a Hard-Target vibe from this one (though you could toss in nearly any flick of his). It’s nice to see him take on a slightly villainous role for a change, too.

You can check out the trailer after the jump. Assassination Games opens in limited release July 29th.

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This week’s pick is the 1984 release of director Joseph Zito’s Missing in Action which was the first installment of the franchise. Chuck Norris stars for the first time as Col. James Braddock, who years earlier escaped a POW camp in Vietnam and returns with an American delegation to find out whether or not Americans are still being held prisoner.

The film also stars M. Emmet Walsh (Jack “Tuck” Tucker), David Tress (Senator Porter), Lenore Kasdorf (Ann), James “Lopan” Hong as (General Trau), and in one of his earliest roles before he became an international star, Jean- Claude Van Damme simply as “The car driver”.

Being labled strickly as B-movie entertainment, the film was considered by many critics and fans of the first Rambo film as a rip-off. Both Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus were intrigued by a screenplay which was floating around Hollywood at the time by an up and coming writer/director named James Cameron, who had graduated from the Roger Corman school of movie making, and had made a name for himself with a small successful Science Fiction film called The Terminator that very same year.

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The film may not have a director, and a cast is still in the process of being shuffled into place and signed, but that hasn’t stopped a brand new poster and plot from being released for the upcoming sequel The Expendables 2.

What we do know, however, is that Stallone will be returning to act in the film, just not direct. No word on who Lionsgate is courting to take on the task, but a script is already in place by the man who brought us Muppets in Space and Curious George, Ken Kaufman. Here’s what Millenium Films is touting as the official plot:

The Expendables are back and this time it’s personal! After Tool (Mickey Rourke), the heart and soul of the Expendables, is brutally murdered on a mission, his comrades swear to avenge him. They’re not the only ones who want blood.

Tool’s beautiful young and wild daughter Fiona embarks on her own revenge mission, complicating matters when she is captured and ransomed by a ruthless dictator plotting to destroy a resistance movement. Now Barney and the Expendables must risk everything to save her and humanity.

Just about everyone and their mother is rumored to return for the sequel, including a meatier role for both Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. There is even talk that Jean-Claude Van Damme is planning on making an appearance this time as the film’s villain, making this, without question, the ultimate action cast.

We expect to hear more about the film as it travels to Cannes. Lionsgate says that the current scheduled release is August 17th, 2012. Take a look at the full poster after the jump, courtesy of First Showing.

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Muppets are becoming more of the “hip” thing, as big stars keep finding themselves cast in the newest film. Ricky Gervais and Emily Blunt are the latest high-profile celebrities to join the growing list of cameos in Disney’s newest Muppets movie. The specifics behind their cameos have yet to be announced.

The Hollywood Reporter has announced that the duo are joining a packed lineup that includes Alan Arkin, Jack Black, Billy Crystal, Zach Galifianakis and Jean-Claude Van Damme, who have appearances in a story that reunites the Muppets in order to save their movie studio from a developer. I smell musical numbers!

The new Muppets flick, directed by James Bobin, is currently being filmed in various locations around Los Angeles. Jason Segel, who co-wrote the script with Nicholas Stoller, is the human lead (no surprise here after his vampire number in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) while Amy Adams, Chris Cooper and Rashida Jones round out the cast of human leads.

Stay tuned to The Flickcast for the latest developments on the new Muppets movie.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt are joined by resident gaming expert John Carle for another round of discussions and debate. This week’s topics include the rather lame Superbowl ads, Smallville: Absolute Justice, Avatar being dethroned by Dear John, Betty White hosting Saturday Night Live, Microsoft stopping XBox Live for original XBox, reboots of Daredevil and The Thing and upcoming games such as Mass Effect 2 and the future of console gaming.

The boys also made some great picks this week including John’s pick of the animated X-Men series, Matt’s pick of Double Team with Jean Claude Van Damme and Mickey Rourke and Chris’ pick of John Carpenter’s 1982 horror/sci-fi classic The Thing.

As usual, if you have any comments, questions, critiques or offers of sponsorship, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitterand at Facebook, MySpace or via email.

In the milieu of “better-than-they-have-a-right-to-be” action movies, I need to add 1992′s Universal Soldier. From the team that later brought us Stargate and Independence Day, Universal Soldier starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolpf Lundgren back when those names actually meant something at the box office.

Still, even with a mediocre script and some stilted acting, the movie actually managed to be pretty good and even more importantly, fun. Now, many years later and after at least one sequel already down, the very forgettable Universal Soldier: The Return, we now are going to get a third installment of the franchise, cleverly entitled Universal Soldier: Regeneration. And yes, we’ve got a trailer for you, so don’t worry.

This one goes direct to video this time but does feature returning stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren. It also brings UFC heavyweight champion Andrei “The Pitbull” Arlovski into the mix, which could prove interesting. Or, maybe not. Either way, the movie hits Blu-ray and DVD on Feb. 2, 2010.

In the meantime, click through to check out the trailer and enjoy some Regeneration.

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