Wesley Snipes joins The Expendables 3, Mel Gibson to direct?

We've known since before the release of the second movie that Sylvester Stallone plans to reunite his roster of aging action icons for The Expendables 3, and back in August producer Avi Lerner offered up a wish-list of stars for the third movie, which included Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Nicolas Cage and Wesley Snipes. It was rumoured a few months back that Nicolas Cage had signed on, only for the report to be debunked, but we can now officially tick off the first name from that list, and as you'd expect, it's Wesley Snipes.

"Wesley Snipes joined the crew tonight and that makes me damn happy," said Sly via Twitter (in a tweet which has since been deleted). "Hope Snipes brings his A-Game."

It's certainly been a while since we've seen Snipes' A-Game; his last theatrical release came way back in 2004 with Blade: Trinity, and following a lawsuit against New Line Cinema over the third Blade movie, the actor found himself consigned to the straight-to-DVD market for a couple of years before being locked up in 2010 for tax evasion. Snipes was released from prison earlier this month, and will be seen later this year in the supernatural western Gallowwalkers, which he shot before his stay in the slammer.

As well as announcing that Snipes has joined the cast, Stallone has been courting a new director for The Expendables 3, using his Twitter account to put the feelers out to fans to gauge opinion about the possibility of Academy Award-winning director Mel Gibson coming in to the helm the third instalment. Following a negative reaction, Sly moved to defend Mad Mel, stating that: "Mel is a MAGNIFICENT director! Pure passion on every level.  We’d be blessed to have him. A REAL long shot, but LIFE is a long shot - right?"

The Expendables 3 is expected to reunite the likes of Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Dolph Lundgren, Jason Statham and Jet Li, while martial arts superstar Jackie Chan has stated that he's also set to appear in the threequel.