No sooner had The Expendables 2 been released than speculation began about who would be in the next one. Nicholas Cage was quickly announced, and a handful of other names have been confirmed including Wesley Snipes, Jackie Chan and Mickey Rourke. With Bruce Willis’s recent walkout in protest at his measly fee of $3m for four days work, the much better Harrison Ford was taken on in his place. This got people like me thinking about who would be in our dream cast. So here are 9 actors who should be in it, but probably won’t be.

Mr T

Mr T would be a fun addition to the cast. He once crossed blows with Stallone’s second toughest character, Rocky Balboa, in Rocky III, so The Expendables 3 could be the perfect opportunity for a rematch. The reasons he won’t become an expendable don’t end with the fact he can’t get on a plane. Nowadays he’s basically just known for his ridiculous public persona, but this could bring some levity to the film. I pity the fool who doesn’t send a contract to this man now!

Danny Glover

Even when Lethal Weapon came out in 1987, Glover’s thing was that he was old. He was the slower, more experienced Murtaugh to Mel Gibson’s impulsive Riggs. But with Gibson rumoured to be on board, why not Glover? Besides the Lethal Weapon franchise he came face-to-face with Arnie’s old foe in Predator 2, proving his tough guy credentials. Is he too old for the franchise? No. In fact, it may surprise you to learn he’s the same age as Sly himself, who didn’t start making old guy quips until 2009.

Michael Biehn

Biehn is one of my favourite tough guys from the 80s. In The Terminator he was able to pull off being a supersoldier while being vulnerable, loving and kind, and was also really cute, although I guess that’s not Sylvester Stallone’s main concern when casting for The Expendables. He also delivered excellent performance in other James Cameron productions Aliens and The Abyss. But his lack of high profile work since is why he won’t make it to The Expendables, which is really unfair. I mean, who the hell is Randy Couture?

James Earl Jones

Ok, so this one’s best know for his voice work, but when that voice work includes Darth Vader, one of the hardest bastards in movie history, and Mufasa in The Lion King, he’s surely worth considering. He also appeared onscreen opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian as the deliciously named Thulsa Doom. If that doesn’t qualify him as an expendable, what does?

Clint Eastwood

Eastwood has reportedly been approached for the film, but given his age and the fact he’s now a serious Hollywood director he’s not likely to agree. Of course it would be great to see him dig out his poncho and have a quick draw contest with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who pulls out a minigun, or get in a fistfight with Jet Li or something, but let’s not put money on it.

Christopher Lee 

Lee’s second coming, consisting of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings roles, has made him a household name with the younger generation. At 92 he would be twenty years the senior of the previous oldest expendable, Chuck Norris (72 at the time of Expendables 2), but having been in more on screen sword fights than any other actor, he’s certainly qualified, and at 6’5″ even has the physique for it. One of his fingers is said to be wonky from an injury he sustained while fighting Errol Flynn. He might be able to teach those young kids in the rest of the cast a thing or two.

Leslie Nielsen 

Am I the only one who would love to see Leslie Nielsen in The Expendables? Seeing his hilarious brand of dead pan silliness playing off against the blunt kiss-off lines of the rest of the cast would be great, and with two Airplane films and three Naked Guns under his belt he certainly knows his way around the action. Unfortunately Nielsen died in 2010 so will be unable to appear.

Lawrence Fishburne

With Arnie from Predator in the franchise already, and Predator 2‘s Danny Glover on my list, it only seems fair for the hardest bastard in the third Predator film to get a mention too. Fishburne played a bloke so tough he managed to live for years on the predators’ game reservation without getting skewered. Oh, and he was also in some little films called…The Matrix Trilogy. Samuel L Jackson claims he’s often mistaken for Fishburne, and since I daren’t even dream of getting him in the Expendables, Fishburne seems like a natural choice. Unfortunately he’s unlikely to appear due to his ongoing role in everything.

John Travolta 

The famous Scientologist might have danced in Satuday Night Fever, sung in Grease and played Christopher Walken’s wife in Hairspray, but he also played a tough gangster in Pulp Fiction, and worked opposite another Expendables 3 star, Nicholas Cage in the abysmal but eerily well-received Face/Off. He even created the unintentionally hilarious action move Battlefield Earth. Plus, the guy can drive a jumbo jet that he lands in his garden. If nothing else he can play the expendables’ pilot.

Who would you like to see in The Expendables 3?