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Gina Carano to Star in Female ‘Expendables’

Well, this news surprised no one: Gina Carano is the first performer aligned with the female take on The Expendables that was announced last month. The actress is also slated to star in a Taken-like feature called In the Blood and the next Fast and the Furious installment.

Variety reveals Carano’s involvement with this project and that well-known actresses associated with action films are still in talks to come on board. 1984 Private Defense Contractors, the production shingle of Adi Shankar, will oversee the making of the film. Dutch Southern will handle the screenwriting. Shankar said the following about casting Carano:

"I don't know how I'm supposed to make a movie that is supposed to be the female version of 'The Expendables' without Gina Carano in it. It would be like making Twix without caramel or Jamba Juice without jamba.”

That might be an overstatement, but Carano’s a sensible casting choice for this female Expendables equivalent. The actress, a former MMA fighter, made her screen-acting debut in Ben Ramsey’s Blood and Bone and broke through to the mainstream with Steven Soderbergh’s action flick Haywire, which arrived earlier this year.

In response to Carano’s casting, /Film points out that this film might overlook the action heroines of yesteryear in favor of more modern ones:

“With Carano now attached, it’s possible the film is ignoring the ‘old-school’ aspect of The Expendables and instead focusing the idea of a team alone. If age isn’t a factor, the list gets very crowded very quickly: Ali Larter, Lucy Liu, Sarah Michelle Geller [sic], Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale for example. Or maybe Carano is the Liam Hemsworth exception to the rule and we will get older ladies. The next cast member will tell us everything.”

Hollywood’s general treatment of older women whose names aren’t Meryl Streep supports this idea, but whatever happens, here’s hoping that Sigourney Weaver somehow fits into the picture.

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