By Arturo R. García
Film bloggers got a bit abuzz last week at reports that an all-female spinoff of the Expendables franchise was being developed, with “several prominent actresses affiliated with the action genre” being contacted.
This being Hollywood, of course, don’t expect too much on the diversity front–heck, even seeing Jet Li as part of the crew in Sylvester Stallone’s original ensemble and Yu Nan and Terry Crews in the sequel–is about as good as we’re probably going to get in that series.
But here at Chromatic Casting, we know we can do better. And so we’ll give it a shot under the cut.
Keeping in mind that this series basically involves anthropomorphic tropes as characters, we won’t get too deep with the descriptions, but we’ll slot folks into some archetypal roles for the protagonist team, with the villains being a bit more fluid.
The Mastermind: CCH Pounder
The Field Leader: Gina Torres
The Second-In Command: Michelle Yeoh
The Hitter: Michelle Rodriguez
The Veterans: Pam Grier and Angela Bassett
The Up-And-Comer: Grace Park
(No, I know, this photo is potentially problematic. But you’d be surprised at the dearth of decent photos online of Park bearing arms as Boomer in BSG–or photos in general–that aren’t from a Maxim shoot or her emerging from the surf in Hawaii Five-0. And we’re trying for brand consistency here.)
UPDATE: New screencap provided by anomica. Thanks very much!
The Spy: Zoe Saldana
Saldana, on the other hand, can be seen wielding more weapons than an NRA convention.
And on the villainous side we could go with:
Salma Hayek
Lucy Liu
Kelly Hu
Eva Mendes
Queen Latifah
Jessica Alba
Now, off the top of my head, I think we’re on to something here. Would you watch this cast, Racializens?
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