Action Stars? Check. Explosions? Check. More Action Stars? Check. Foreground Flames for no reason? Check. Still more Action Stars? Check, check, check.

Yep, the new Expendables 2 poster hits on just about every note you could possibly expect in an action movie poster. It exudes masculine, muscle-bound machismo more so than any poster for an actual feature film I can recall. Which is exactly the right tone they should be setting in their marketing.

Looking at this poster reminds me of a thought that crossed my mind while watching The Avengers. Projects like these ought not to exist, when we were growing up the concept of an all out action franchise staring just about every icon of the genre was a pipe dream. Now it is a reality.

People still want to worry about the rating, but with the way the MPAA has softened their stance on violence in the last decade I am sure the ‘spolsions and shootin’ wont be too neutered. It is also key to remember Stallone shot the first Expendables to be PG-13 as well, most of the R-rated content was the result of re-shoots.

Take a look at the full poster after the jump, and be prepared to be blown away by pure awesomeness August 17th.

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…

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.

As summer dies down with explosive fire power and spiritual journeys to other lands, I recall the glorious action fest that was The Expendables. In turns out Julia Roberts has nothing on protein packed men with a mission on their minds. My female counterparts have voiced their love of meaty men in droves and unexpectedly taken away business from Julia’s love fest. Nearly 40 percent of The Expendables‘ audience was women. X-Men Origins: Wolverine‘s audience raked them in as nearly 50 percent of the audience was female. It seems women have tired of the boys akin to Michael Cera and instead jones for something with a little more muscle. Stallone should have learned the key to Hugh Jackman’s success to driving women in throngs- taking off his shirt.

I hear Hugh gave up his lead in Avon Man to start his insane work-out to become the ferocious mutant once again. If you take months upon months to beef up like these 80‘s action legends did, you’d think they’d want to show it off. Plus, wasn’t it super hot in Louisiana and Brazil where The Expendables shot? It was like 100 degrees with 100 percent humidity. Stallone couldn’t have been the only one who was feeling the heat.  Take off those shirts and up your female movie-going audience to 51 percent.

The Expendables is a prime example of a “because they can” movie: Why do they have a moment where Jason Statham takes on five guys at a basketball court for roughing up his girlfriend? Why do they have Terry Crews marching down a hallway eviscerating an army of South American militants? Why do they have Mickey Rourke give five-minute monologue of complete incomprehensibility? Why? Because they can.

There’s no pretentious want of consistency or deeper meaning other than Stallone wanting to show you that he can still blow shit up and make people laugh when a man’s head gets twisted 180 degrees around (complete with bone-crunching sound effects). When the first scene of the film shows the top half of a man getting blown up in gooey detail, you know what you’re in for. When the camera lingers for a second on the bloody stump of his lower half, you know you’ve got it.

This is the kind of movie reviewers love because the entire plot can be recapped in one sentence: The Expendables are a team of mercenaries sent to some fictional South American country to overthrow the government. That’s about it. At a time when action movies are overly concerned with psychological depth and ponderous plot complications, The Expendables is like mouth-to-mouth from a humongously well-buxomed lifeguard.

First and foremost, it’s a throwback to the mindlessly fun action movies of the ‘80s that were drenched in blood, muscles, and testosterone. Stallone knows this material well, and delights in showing us the innumerable ways in which he and his five-man army (made of himself, Statham, Crews, Jet-Li, Randy Couture, and, for a time, Dolph Lundgren) can kill.

This weekend, the movie going masses will be split into three camps. Some will be buying tickets for Julia Roberts’ new film Eat, Pray, Love while the younger generation will be headed to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. That leaves the rest of us to go see the biggest collection of action stars together for the first time in one film. You know it as The Expendables.

The film’s premise isn’t all that important considering what most people are probably seeing the movie for. However, if you do care about that sort of thing the film is basically about a group of renegade mercenaries who uncover a international plot that they are called in to take down. The film is written by, directed by, and stars Sylvester Stallone and also includes some of the biggest names in action cinema. Here’s a brief list:

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Steve Austin, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Mickey Rourke, & Eric Roberts. Not bad, right?

We’ve got a brand new clip from the film in which Sly and Statham argue about which is faster: Sly’s bullets or Statham’s throwing knives. Check out the clip after the jump and catch The Expendables in theaters this Friday. You know you want to.

Now that Inception is far behind us, there’s one more film slated for release this year that we can’t wait to see. Of course, that film is Stallone’s action masterpiece The Expendables. The cast alone is enough to bring in most passerby’s, but we fans of the film genre only need to hear the names Arnold, Bruce, and Sly in order to pre-order our tickets.

The casting alone is proof that Stallone is making this film for fans of the genre, and anyone else caught in the crossfire is OK, too. With that in mind, Lionsgate has done a neat new viral ad to promote the film on YouTube. Unlike the last viral web spot we’ve seen for the film, which called for us to prove our manhood by buying a ticket, this one is official and actually sanctioned by Lionsgate. Still, they’re both pretty awesome.

Be sure to check out the full video over at YouTube, and make sure you’ve got about 2 minutes to kill, because there’s no pausing allowed. With this kind of ad possible over at Youtube, you can expect to see plenty of studios taking the chance and trying out viral marketing for the first time.

Expendables is set to hit theaters on August 13th, and stars Sly, Bruce Willis, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Mickey Rourke, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dolph Lundgren.

The fan with knowledge of video editing is a marvelous creature. They are just like the rest of us, but they are able to show their love and geekdom off by producing some pretty high quality viral videos, thus creating an infitine loop of fans and enjoyment.

The Monocular Group, who also brought us the famed 2012 retro trailer last year are at it again, and this time they are sending out a call to arms for men everywhere to go see The Expendables on August 13th.

The trailer takes a pretty strong stand against the state of Hollywood lately, and points out that Expendables, which can easily be considered the quintessential “guy movie”, will be opening against the film adaptation of Eat Pray Live starring Julia Roberts. Basically (according to the message of the trailer) if you are a “real man”, you’ll go see The Expendables that weekend, and help it beat out the alleged “chick flick”.

Check out the fun fan trailer after the jump, and be sure to live up to it’s directions and catch Stallone’s The Expendables on August 13th.

Back when we heard that Stallone called upon his old Planet Hollywood buddies Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis to make a cameo in his upcoming tough guy extravaganza The Expendables, we were all taken back a bit. This would be the first time that all three actors, who basically set the bar for action films in the 80s and 90s, would be on screen at the same time.

While we were a tad skeptical how they would pull it off, we figured they would find a way around the scene by potentially having one or both actors shoot their scenes in a different location, and later splicing them together. Well, with the newest trailer hitting the web yesterday, we got our answer, and it looks awesome.

The film is about a group of renegade military operatives (not to be confused with The Losers or The A-Team) who face the biggest threat they’ve ever encountered. Written and Directed by Sylvester Stallone, the film also stars Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jet Li, Steve Austin, and Eric Roberts.

Check out the newest trailer after the jump, and catch The Expendables in theaters on August 20th.