Director Of The Raid Responds To Stallone And Expendables 3

Earlier in the year Stallone declared his intention to outdo The Raid (review here): “We believe we can do better than The Raid, which was an excellent film… raising the bar…”.  He was talking about The Expendables 3.  While that’s highly unlikely, we noted in our screenplay review of The Expendables 3 that that movie would probably be at least the equal of The Expendables: Director’s Cut (the best Expendables movie) and that it had a finale eerily similar to The Raid.  Now, Gareth Evans, director of The Raid itself, has responded to Stallone;

I prefer to focus on the fact that he praised the film by singling it out as something he wants to compete with is a major compliment to what we achieved with so little.  Sure it’s possible they will succeed, likewise we’re setting out to top the first film with The Raid 2 – and watching the edit, I think we have.  None of this is nor should be a competition between filmmakers – when I go out and watch an action movie I hope it’s well made, entertaining and inspiring to give us ideas on how we can improve our own game.  I wish them and anyone else out there making an action film every success, I know personally how fucking hard it is to make these films.  So yeah, it’s all good spirited.

You should really check out the rest of this interview here, where Evans talks about Jackie Chan, his favorite martial arts movie and the possibility of taking on a big franchise like Die Hard.  Evans is probably the next big thing – Hollywood knows it since they’ve enticed him with big offers, which he has turned down.  Not only is he extremely talented, he’s not a yes-man.