With The Expendables 3 opening this weekend, last week Lionsgate held the world premiere in London’s Leicester Square, and I was lucky enough to attend the event with a few other American reporters.  Like I said on TwitterThe Expendables 3 is a lot of fun and my favorite of the series due in large part to Mel Gibson,Wesley Snipes and Antonio Banderas.  All three are awesome and Banderas steals every scene he’s in.  In addition to the new cast, The Expendables 3 has a crazy third act that’s easily the best action scene of the franchise.  I think the team kills over a thousand people.  It shows once again how the MPAA doesn’t care about violence when giving out ratings.  Only in America can a film like this get a PG-13.

The other day I landed an exclusive video interview with director Patrick Hughes.  He talked about how they got a PG-13 rating, the challenges of making a movie with such a large cast, working with actors who are highly capable filmmakers themselves like Mel Gibson, how his first cut was over three hours and a half hours, deleted scenes, and a lot more.  In addition, with Hughes prepping his next movie, The Raid remake, he talked about the status of casting, his plan to have the cast undergo six months of training before shooting, Frank Grillo as an action movie star, and so much more.  Hit the jump to watch.

Patrick Hughes:

  • 00:00 – On originally getting an R-rating and then altering the cut.
  • 00:40 – Dealing with the MPAA’s inconsistent rules.
  • 01:56 – On possibly putting an unrated cut on the Blu-ray.
  • 02:12 – Cutting down his original three and a half hour assembly; how Sylvester Stallone’s creativity and the size of the cast affected the cut.
  • 03:40 – Scheduling challenges, particularly when juggling actor schedules.
  • 05:15 – Editing the scene at the end in the bar.
  • 05:40 – How many deleted scenes could wind up in the extended cut or on a DVD special features menu?
  • 06:39 – Growing up watching these icons and then arriving on set and seeing his director’s chair right in the middle of theirs.
  • 08:11 – On working with actors who are highly capable filmmakers themselves like Mel Gibson.
  • 09:05 – Spending one-on-one time with Gibson and learning about his directing techniques.
  • 10:45 – On casting his next film, the remake of The Raid.
  • 11:15 – Meeting the members of real DEA FAST Teams.
  • 12:05 – On the ensemble of The Raid and the Black Hawk Down/Zero Dark Thirty edge to the film
  • 12:24 – The violence in The Raid and how that may affect the rating.
  • 13:08 – Figuring out the logistics for filming; actors must undergo six months of training first.
  • 14:00 – On Frank Grillo as an action movie star.
  • 15:00 – Grillo is in The Raid; scheduling is a challenge though.

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