Back in Nov. 2011, I wrote a story that I called The EX2 Enigma where I tried to establish some sort of a pattern to Millennium/Lionsgate's tactics used to cover their blunders that started with the release of a first plot in May 2011, later rejected by Stallone, the publication of the cast on Millennium's website in Sep. 2011, removed a couple of days later, and finally the now famous EX2 poster said to be a forgery on the same day of its exclusive release/leak in Nov 2011.
There has been some interesting development since then which leads me to think that the Enigma story deserves a follow up to further support its theory.
The EX2 Poster: perhaps the most controversial blunder of the series. The EX2 poster that made the rounds back in Nov 2011 that Millennium/Lionsgate qualified as a forgery, magically showed up over a week ago in a theater in Malaysia promoting the movie (our friend Patrick posted the story on his website). I don't know who the distribution company for EX2 in Malaysia is but isn't there any coordination with the producers to make sure a forged poster is not used publicly to promote the movie.
This is what Joblo who initially got their hands on the poster had to say:
"It’s en vogue to say that poster is bullshit or, as Stallone himself put it, “bogus.” Uh-huh. Well, that’s just not the case. I know the poster and where it came from and how it came to us and trust me it’s the opposite of bogus. It may not wind up being used in an official capacity but if that’s the case, it’s only because it was leaked to us.".
The bottom line is, and everyone knows it by now, Millennium/Lionsgate tried to cover their blunder for whatever unknown reason that was disturbing enough to them for having to go through all the none sense to reject the EX2 poster. Who knows maybe they pissed Li's agent off for not picturing him, or Crews or Hemsworth.
The Plot: it goes public in May 2011 with an official tone to it to get rejected by Stallone days later. Then nothing for seven months until the official release of the synopsis in Dec. which oddly resembles the fake plot. A blunder to have released the plot too early assuming that Rourke would join the cast, or didn't Stallone like the plot and wanted to add his own touch to it. Also worth noting that the story was originally supposed to be credited to Ken Kaufman and David Agosto but ended up bearing Stallone's name alone.
The Cast: Millennium publishes the cast for the first time on their website in early Sep. to fans delight just before the labor weekend, pay attention to the order actors were billed - it read as follows: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Scott Adkins. Well if I was Schwarzenegger's, Willis's or Van Damme's agent I would definitely call Millennium and ask them what the heck they were thinking by billing those action icons in the middle of the pack with no special recognition. It only took a weekend for the whole thing to be removed by Monday. Someone must have forced Millennium/Lionsgate to get creative and assign a "with" & an "and" to the two mega stars and invent the "also" for the action legend. Then also Hemsworth comes along and forces Adkins out.
All that being said, it's all behind us and we finally have an official synopsis, an impressive poster, a nice teaser trailer with an extraordinary cast, so we'll forgive the blunders, and thank the creator of the EX2 poster and all the buzz that came with it.
