Well, you know us, we like to talk about who should direct the next EXPENDABLES. Of course the answer is a John like maybe Hyams or Woo or McTiernan via satellite. But we knew those were not gonna happen. Recently Stallone twittered that he wanted Mel Gibson to direct it, but even he admitted that was unlikely to happen. It is not clear whether or not he asked Danny Glover as a backup.
A few days ago Stallone twittered about meeting with a “NEW BLOOD” director who he said most of us haven’t heard of. We now know for sure that he was not trying to hint at John Carl Buechler, director of FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD. He has revealed that he chose the Australian director Patrick Hughes. I liked his movie RED HILL, which you can read my review of here.
I gotta say, it’s a surprisingly good choice. Who knows how much power Hughes will have (Stallone is often accused of choosing puppet directors so he can control the production without having to do all the directing), or how he’ll do with a bigger production, or what he’ll even want to do with this series. But if he brings any of RED HILL’s foreboding tone and western classicism to it that can only be a good thing.
Note that the FAST AND FURIOUS series is being taken over by James Wan, also an Aussie. Let’s get Greg McLean on a new TRANSPORTER or something.