The Expendables 2 is an upcoming 2012 American ensemble action film directed by Simon West and written by Richard Wenk

and Sylvester Stallone, based on a story by Ken Kaufman, David Agosto and Wenk. It is a sequel to the 2010 action film The Expendables, and stars Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren,Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, JeanClaude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The film is due to be released on August 17, 2012, by Lions Gate Entertainment. After taking a seemingly simple job for Mr. Church (Bruce Willis), the Expendables find their plans going awry and one of their own is brutally murdered by rival mercenary Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme). The Expendables set out into hostile territory with their new members Bill the Kid (Liam Hemsworth) and Maggie (Yu Nan) to put a stop to a deadly weapon and gain their revenge against the villain who killed their brother. The cast is rounded out by Chinese actress Yu Nan as Maggie, Charisma Carpenter who returns as Christmas's girlfriend Lacy, Swedish actress Amanda Ooms as Pilar, a sniper, and Nikolette Noel as Sophia, Billy's wife. Professional Tennis player Novak Djokovic has a cameo role as himself after being invited to participate by producer Avi Lerner. Several actors were reported to be in talks to appear in the sequel at various stages of its development. In October 2010, Willis claimed that Steve Austin would be returning to the series as villain Dan Paine. In November 2010, Charlie Sheen was reported to be in consideration for the role of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent hunting down Willis' character. In August 2011, Variety reported that actor, and expert martial-artist, Donnie Yen had been offered a role in the film. The role was a condition of a partnership between Nu Image/Millennium Films and an unnamed Chinese distributor that would see the distributor becoming a producer on the film in exchange for a Chinese actor being cast. The partnership was also considered to make a Chinese release of the film easier to achieve. In September 2011, Stallone confirmed that he was in talks with Nicolas Cage and John Travolta, claiming the only obstacle to their involvement would be scheduling. In July 2011, Mickey Rourke was stated to be reprising his role as Tool, but by late September it was reported that he had dropped out of the film, and by October 18, 2011 this status was confirmed. Antonio Banderas was reportedly offered a role but was unable to participate due to other commitments. On his approach to casting, Stallone explained that he was looking particularly for actors who had not experienced recent significant success in film, saying: "I like using people that had a moment and then maybe have fallen on some hard times and give them another shot. So were always looking for actors like Michael Biehn and Michael Par. I like those kinds of guys. Someone did it for me and I like to see if I can do it for them."