Stallone and Statham team up for "Expendables"

By Gregg Goldstein

SANTA MONICA (Hollywood Reporter) - Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham have become expendable.

The pair will join Jet Li, who's in final negotiations, as a team of mercenaries in "The Expendables," an action film that Stallone wrote and will direct.

The main characters are sent to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator to liberate the population. Their team is "expendable," hired to do jobs that no one else can or will. Principal photography will begin in February in Costa Rica and Louisiana.

The film is the first in Stallone's two-picture deal with Nu Image/Millennium Films. The second is expected to be the next instalment of his popular "Rambo" series. The studio's most recent collaboration with Stallone, "Rambo," grossed $155 million worldwide this year. Statham and Li previously collaborated on the martial-arts actioner "War."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter