Sylvester Stallone commonly takes to his Twitter feed to keep fans informed with up-to-the-minute news regarding his latest projects. Lately he’s been blowing up the feed with rumors about who will or won’t be directing/starring in/operating the boom mike on The Expendables 3, which is set for release late next summer.

Today Stallone dropped a mighty big bomb – bigger than Rhinestone even – about the latest old-school action hero to join him, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, and whoever else has yet to join the cast. News flash: he’s bigger than the entire cast combined…Harrison Ford. And even more interesting is this is apparently not a casting addition, but a replacement of Bruce Willis.

The Expendables 2
Directed by Simon West
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis
Lionsgate Entertainment
Rated R | 103 Minutes
Release Date: August 17, 2012

“I now pronounce you man and knife.”

Simon West (The Mechanic) takes over directing duties for Sylvester Stallone with The Expendables 2, the sequel to Stallone’s 2010 bullet-blasted action flick.

Written by Richard Menk (The Mechanic, 16 Blocks) and Stallone, The Expendables 2 features an all-star lineup of ’80s and ’90s action stars and their new school successors.

Led by Barney Ross (Stallone), The Expendables consist of blades specialist Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), martial artist Yin Yang (Jet Li), weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews), demolitions expert Toll Road (Randy Couture), and snipers Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) and Billy the Kid (Liam Hemsworth), the new guy.

The panel for The Expendables 2, the upcoming sequel to the surprise 2010 crackerjack action film which was written by and stars Sylvester Stallone, made an appearance in Hall H at the 2012 San Diego Comic Convention today.

The testosterone alpha male laden panel, comprised of Stallone, MMA champ Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Dolph Lundgren and actor cum politician cum actor again Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday no less an authority than President Camacho himself, Terry freakin’ Crews, promised us that a new trailer for The Expendables 2 would be arriving online today to put a blood-and-skull-splattered boot in our collective ass. Sure enough as I sit here with The Dirty Dozen, the original (and still best) of the all-star superteam action-adventures, playing in the background I sit here writing this: Today Crews’ loud and awful snarly promise was fulfilled.

You can watch the mighty new trailer here below.

I’m a huge fan of the first Expendables, but having re-watched it on Blu-ray recently it’s clear that the movie has serious problems when it comes to the narrative structure and the staging of the action sequences. Don’t get me wrong, Sylvester Stallone did a fine job directing the movie overall, especially when you take into account that he was also writing and starring in the movie at the same time (and taking some near-paralyzing injuries in the process). But when the aging but still active action hero announced that a new director would take the helm of The Expendables 2 while he stuck to acting duties I took a great amount of relief in that news.

The first teaser trailer for Lionsgate’s summer 2012 testosterone-fiesta The Expendables 2 has been released. You can watch the trailer and read the official plot synopsis here below.

The trailer is little more than Bruce Willis‘ menacing Mr. Church (the character he played in the single scene he shared with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original) confronting Stallone’s Barney Ross about a deal they made and how it’s time to pay up, followed by a roll call of the movie’s cast. Eleven actors, and not one neck between them.