Kurt turns down Sly?

Since it was first announced, we’ve been closely monitoring Sylvester Stallone’s action flick THE EXPENDABLES, if only to see who would be the next familiar face added to the cast.

Sadly, one of those faces apparently will NOT be the Cash to Sly’s Tango — Kurt Russell was approached for the project and turned it down. Or at least an attempt was made, but whether it even got to Russell’s ocular/auditory organs remains a question.

As Stallone says (via StalloneZone): “I know that many people on the site have asked for Kurt Russell. I asked for him too.  Actually, I was taken aback when asked to put the request in a letter and send it to his agent.  Subsequently, I was called back by the agent several days later after refusing to send a letter and he said Kurt Russell is not interested in ‘ensemble acting’ at this time. So, People, I came, I saw, I failed.”

Now, if that said he wasn’t interested in ‘ensemble acting’ since POSEIDON turned out to be a colossal floating turd, that might seem more believable. But Russell’s recent films have found him as a colorful background character in SKY HIGH, playing off a horse (and Dakota Fanning) in DREAMER, and getting about 15 minutes of screentime in GRINDHOUSE, so it seems like less of a hubris issue on Russell’s part and more like agent cockblocking. But who knows?

Either way, it’s quite a pisser that such an iconic genre actor won’t be part of Sly’s action (not that it isn’t already overflowing with awesome).