Sylvester Stallone has been on a roll as of late, bouncing back from direct-to-DVD limbo beginning with the box-office success of 2006’s “Rocky Balboa” ($24 million budget, $155 million worldwide) and racking up more commercial mojo with 2008’s “Rambo” ($47.5 million budget, $116 million worldwide) and last year’s “The Expendables” ($82 million budget, $266 million worldwide), all three of which he also directed.
Now Stallone is back in the saddle for “The Tomb”, in which the newly-revived action star will play a structural security expert who is framed for a crime and subsequently imprisoned in a facility that he designed. He must then use every resource at his disposal to find out who is responsible for landing him there.
The news was broken by Variety.
The film, which Summit will distribute in North America, previously had Bruce Willis attached to star with Antoine Fuqua directing. When they departed, Arnold Schwarzenegger briefly circled the project as a potential comeback vehicle before signing on to “Last Stand” instead. No director is currently attached, though Stallone’s attachment is obviously a big boost.
The script was written by Miles Chapman, with a rewrite undertaken by Jason Keller (“Machine Gun Preacher”, Tarsem Singh’s “Snow White”).
Stallone is now shooting “The Expendables 2”, directed by Simon West and slated for release on August 17th, 2012. He’ll next be seen in Walter Hill’s “Bullet to the Head”, which hits theaters on April 13th.
What do you think of Stallone’s recent successes? Are you happy to see him back on Hollywood’s radar?