Three years ago, “Escape Plan” hit theaters. It starred Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger and it was dumb and got terrible reviews and tanked at the box office and everyone moved on with their lives. Well, everyone in North America at any rate. Overseas, the low rent action movie earned a staggering $112 million, hugely outpacing the tepid domestic haul of $25 million. And for the folks at Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films, that’s enough reason to greenlight a sequel.
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While he’s retired from Rambo, Stallone will be the returning to play Ray Breslin in the flick. It’s a not a huge surprise that China will be big part of the financing engine for this movie considering the first flick did so well in the country. Miles Chapman, who wrote the first movie, is back to pen the followup, though there’s no word on who will direct. As for Arnie, it seems he won’t be involved, but he’s got his own $200 million Chinese blockbuster to work on.
Pre-production kicks off in the New Year, with cameras rolling this spring in Ohio and China. And while the film will receive a U.S. release via Lionsgate Premiere, let’s face it, this movie is not being made with the North American audience or box office in mind. But even for those who came out to “Escape Plan” in droves abroad, I can’t imagine many of them actually want more. [Deadline]