MY MOVIE WEEKwith Mike Shaw

» Something that I was excited about but am no longer interested in is The Expendables 2. What has caused this massive swing in sentiment?

Chuck Norris.

He’s a man with many special skills but now it seems he has the power to turn a kick-ass action film with loads of guns and action movie stars into a family-friendly flick with no bad language. The first Expendables film was super-violent with tons of swearing and explosions and was brilliant. The sequel did have more violence, more swearing, more explosions and more old-school action stars... but then Chuck got involved.

Norris said: “In Expendables 2, there was a lot of vulgar dialogue in the screenplay. For this reason, many young people wouldn’t be able to watch this. But I don’t play in movies like this. Due to that I said I won’t be a part of that if the hardcore language is not erased. Producers accepted my conditions and the movie will be classified PG-13.”

At first, people thought his statement was just the ramblings of a man who has received too many kicks to the head but alas, it turns out it’s true. I couldn’t be more disappointed if the whole cast was replaced with Keanu Reeves lookalikes.

Almost every big budget film is made with a family audience in mind and I enjoy the rare movies that are made for adults who like a bit of dumb action that hasn’t been diluted by studios eager to claw in some extra cash from idiot teenagers. Of course, the proof will be in the final product, but I hope that we’ll get a glorious, unsanitised kill-a-thon on DVD.

» It’s been a long time since we heard anything about the animated adaptation of the excellent comic book series Bone but finally there’s some movement. PJ Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Peter Pan) has signed on to direct and TV writer Patrick Sean Smith is handling the script.

Published by Jeff Smith between 1991 and 2004, Bone is a weird story about three small, hairless cousins – Fone Bone, Smiley Bone and Phoney Bone who are kicked out of Boneville when Phoney messes up a run for mayor. They eventually find themselves in a mysterious place called the Valley, where they meet Thorn and her grandmother, Rose. It’s silly and slapstick, but later becomes really quite serious and packed with allegory and it’s brilliant. I’m really looking forward to this film.

» Sweet Valley High fans, your favourite book/TV series is coming to the big screen and it’s going to be a musical. Juno writer Diablo Cody is scribbling this one and said: “There’s original songs being written for it right now, which is the most exciting development. They’re being written by these Tony and Pulitzer-winning songwriters from Broadway.”

She also said that her film is going to be “to the 1980s what American Graffiti was to the early 1960s,” which sounds a little over the top, but we’ll see.

While Juno was practically perfect, everything Cody has done since has been unmitigated rubbish so she’s due another hit.