True, I'm a sucker for '80s action flicks, but goddamn, I can't wait for The Expendables, a movie that looks like it's been hewn out of concentrated badass and lit dynamite. The New York Times has a bit of background on how the retro-styled action flick came together, including Sly's failed attempt to get Jean-Cleaude Van Damme to join its all-star cast:

Rounding up the cast, Mr. Stallone said, was not especially difficult, except for Jean-Claude Van Damme, who declined a role that was eventually taken by Mr. Lundgren. “He told me, you should be trying to save people in South Central,” Mr. Stallone recalled of a conversation with Mr. Van Damme.

“I knew I’d lost him.”

Ooh la la, look who got a few good reviews for JCVD and now's all philanthropic and shit. The only way that quote makes sense is if Jean-Claude is living out of a militia-styled hideout somewhere in South Central, winning kickboxing tournaments every day and patrolling back alleys every night, doing the splits and roundhousing any and all criminals he comes across. If that's the case, then Van Damme's totally justified in getting all guilt-trippy on Sly. But something tells me it's not.

Full story here.