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Sylvester Stallone's latest movie The Expendables, about a ragtag gang of mercenaries, is scheduled for release next year.
'Bad asses,' Stallone, taking a break on the New Orleans set of the film, laughs.
In what arguably is the toughest cast of brutes put together in a Hollywood film, Stallone handpicked a who's who of tough guys, A-List action stars, elite athletes, mixed martial arts (MMA) champions and championship wrestlers to be his co-stars.
The all-star list is headed by this year's best actor Oscar nominee and former professional boxer Mickey Rourke, Chinese martial arts king Jet Li, British action star Jason Statham, Stallone's former Rocky nemesis Dolph Lungdren, gridiron linebacker Terry Crews, championship wrestler Steve 'Stone Cold' Austin and MMA heavyweight champ Randy Couture.
For good measure, Stallone also coaxed Arnold Schwarzenegger out of his California governor's chair for a cameo.
There's a rumour Bruce Willis also has a role.
Stallone wrote, directed and stars in The Expendables, about a ragtag gang of mercenaries sent to South America to free an island nation captured by an evil general.
'These guys don't fit in this world,' Stallone says.
'They are expendable.'
Action film fans will have to be patient.
Stallone and his crew completed the film in late June and The Expendables is not scheduled for release until April next year.
If the stars of the movie sound intimidating, Stallone encourages the movie's audience to take a look at the not so well known actors he cast in The Expendables.
The film was partly shot in Brazil and Stallone trawled the country's MMA gyms for the toughest, meanest men he could find.
'We have some tough men in this film,' Stallone says in his familiar deep, mumbling, monotone voice.
'We have extras in this movie who can conquer countries.
'I went to Brazil and got the baddest, toughest MMA fighters. They could snap us like spaghetti. That's just the extras.'
With so many tough guys on set Stallone made sure tempers did not flare.
'The biggest alpha dog of course is Sly so he keeps everybody in check,' Lungdren, the blond 196cm tall Swedish-born actor best known for playing Soviet Union boxing champ Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, said.
The Expendables is the most extravagant project of Stallone's 50-plus film career.
It was a long journey for the 62-year-old (Stallone turns 63 on July 6) to turn the script into a movie.
'We did about 100 drafts because it just kept evolving,' Stallone says.
'It constantly changed.'
At one point Stallone was pursuing less beefcake and had Oscar winners Forest Whitaker and Ben Kingsley in his sights to be co-stars.
'But after a while the parts changed and certain characters I didn't even think of like Mickey Rourke's and Terry Crews', they just started to develop,' Stallone says.
'It was much more CIA, stealth and wordy but then as we pared it down we went for more physical people.
'It started out as a dark comedy, a satire.
'Then we made it a really hard 'R' rating. Then I went back.
'It was constantly being brutally changed. It wasn't literally until a week before shooting I said 'Let's just make this kind of movie'.'
The result is a film Stallone says 'has a poignancy but it isn't preachy. It is dark comedy'.
The comedy comes from playing up on the images the public may have of the stars. For instance, Stallone says Statham is regarded as a bit of a playboy by the media.
In The Expendables Statham's character, Lee Christmas, has 'problems with women'.
He also encouraged the cast to adlib.
Stallone did not find it hard to sign his cast. The likes of Li and Statham, used to being the stars of their films, were keen to work with their idol.
To ensure they found their roles satisfying, Stallone took great care in developing characters he thought Rourke, Li, Statham and the other headliners would find interesting.
Each character has a back story.
'You try to write parts that interest them and appeal to their sense of competition,' Stallone says.
'You just had to get their interest.'
