Apparently Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and Wesley Snipes are on the wishlist of guys to join Sylvester Stallone in his third outing as Barney Ross.  That's not all, though, as it's implied that Nicolas Cage is attached to the next sequel.  Cage was rumored to be joining The Expendables 2 when production began in Bulgaria last year, but that didn't work out, likely on account of scheduling.

While promoting the new movie, series producer Avi Lerner revealed this little wishlist to Total Film, saying,

"We’ve approached Clint Eastwood to be one of the guys, we’ve got a character in mind for him. We’re talking to Harrison Ford. [And we want] Wesley Snipes when he comes back from prison. I’ll give you one more name, we’ve got Nicolas Cage to play [one of the characters].”

“And we’re going to bring Mickey Rourke back, if he won’t be too crazy. I like Mickey. And of course, all the existing stars [will return]”

Crucial omissions so far that must – it's basically a moral imperative – be corrected in a third movie: Carl Weathers, Mr. T, Sven-Ole Thorsen, and Robert Patrick.

Okay, based on this, it seems as though Cage is set, but let's look at the maybes. 

Eastwood seems like a long shot, by which I mean to say a nigh impossible shot.  He works pretty much exclusively as a director of prestige pictures now, and he publicly stated that 2008's Gran Torino would be his last film as an actor.  That turned out to be untrue, as he's starring in next month's Trouble With the Curve.  His involvement there stems from his relationship with director Robert Lorenz, who has served as an assistant director and/or producer on all Eastwood's movies in the last decade.  It's the first time Eastwood has worked with a director who isn't named Clint Eastwood since Wolfgang Peterson's In the Line of Fire back in 1993.  The odds of him once again emerging from acting semi-retirement for a goofy action sequel look slim.

Harrison Ford is considerably more likely, since he's made it abundantly clear that he'll show up to most places up so long as there's a kiddie pool full of crisp bills.  Snipes, meanwhile, is indeed serving out a sentence in federal prison for misdemeanor tax shenanigans, but he's due to be released next year.  Snipes would right at home ice-skating uphill alongside the Expendables, and would have time to do so.  Then there's Mickey Rourke, who played Tool in the first film but opted against returning for the second.  Rourke's a famounsly eccentric character, so who knows on that one?  It's pretty much guaranteed that if he does appear, he'll have his pet bird onscreen with him.

And there are all the guys from The Expendables 2 who will reprises their goofily-named characters, such as Jason Statham as Lee Christmas, Terry Crews as Hale Caesar, Jet Li as Yin Yang, Liam Hemsworth as Bill "The Kid' Timmons, Dolph Lundgren as Gunnar Jensen, Randy Couture as Toll Road, and maybe even Chuck Norris as Booker.