Past Their 'Prime'? No Way! Our Top Picks For An All-Female 'Expendables 2'

Can women over 40 be awesome action heros like all those guys over 60 still are?

Amidst Sigourney Weaver's recent disappointing statements about thinking she's too old to be playing Ripley in any further Aliens franchise movies and the awesome news that Linda Hamilton may star in a Terminator 5 film, we've got our panties all fucked up because we've been debating how much we love action heroines, and how many of them are over 40 now. We don't think that's a bad thing - in fact, we think women over 40 are awesome action heroes and we think you do too. We think you'd be out in theaters in masses to see Ripley or Sarah Connor tear shit up once again, and so would we.

In a recent interview with Moviehole, filmmaker Justin Lin discussed the new Terminator movie he's producing, and seems to want Hamilton to reprise her role as the tough-as-nails freedom-fighter/mom Sarah Connor, which she created in the first Terminator movie in 1983. He laments to the interviewer that Hamilton was so awesome in the first two films, but barely appears in #3 and not at all in #4.

"Sarah Connor is such a big part of the franchise, you know. Yeah, I mean I’ve always been surprised how in part 3 she was just like… It was like one line and she was gone." He continues to describe how he might bring her back for the new film: "But I think the great thing about this franchise is you have… You can actually have different canons because you have the element of time travel. So, there’s a way of kind of respecting all the works but also able to create a new time line."

This good news sort-of helps counteract Sigourney Weaver's saddening statement that she's too old to ever play Ripley in any further Aliens movies. Here's what she said:

Fuck that! On our own forums, here, we've been talking about which action actresses over 40 are our favorites and how we'd like to see more of them, and then the above interviews come out, giving us much food for thought. One of our staff writers asked,

"So, one thing that upset me about The Expendables was the lack of recognition of action-orientated actresses. No women in the gang. So, bearing in mind the perspective of this film series (not all the actors are super old school, nor of the same genre, nor even in that many movies, but are "legendary" in an action-orientated way, and somewhat...uh...past their box-office prime) if you were casting The Expendables 2, which actresses would you pick to round out the existing gang?"

And we did exactly that. Pick our top choices.

Of course, we didn't want you to think we ignored all our options. The women who were considered as possible Expendables 2 members were varied and awesome, ranging from Mimi Lesseos, Rachel McLish, Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, Sigourney Weaver, Vivica Fox, Sandahl Bergman, Sybil Danning, Cory Everson, Kathy Long, Carrie-Anne Moss, Maria Bello, Helen Mirren, Erin Grey, Nichelle Nichols, Ellen Barkin, Elizabeth Hurley, Connie Neilsen, Monica Belluci, Geena Davis, Halle Berry, Gina Gershon, Demi Moore, Pam Grier, Tia Carrere, Dina Meyer, Yancy Butler, Lucy Lawless, Adrienne Barbeau, Grace Jones, Brigitte Nielson, all the way to Linda Hamilton. Sorry, but Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Jennifer Garner, Angelina Jolie and Zoe Bell are too young to be cast in such a film - they'll just have to wait their turns. And sadly, we've lost one of the best of the bunch recently, with the passing of Tura Satana, and the sad murder of Lana Clarkson only a few years ago.

In the end, we could only pick ten.

Linda Hamilton: She's Sarah Connor, the mother of John Connor, savior of the human race. And if she needs to carry a gun and bulge some bicep at you to keep him safe from a futuristic army of robotic assassins, she'll do just that. Hamilton played Connor in "The Terminator" and its sequel "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", and shortly after starred in "Black Moon Rising", an action thriller with Tommy Lee Jones. In 1997 she defied nature in the thrilling "Dante's Peak" and now plays CIA agent Mary Elizabeth Bartowski on the HBO serial-killer-series "Chuck." This is, of course, discounting all of her stunt work running from machetes in the original horror film version of "Children of the Corn."

Sybil Danning: While being interviewed for the first edition of "Playgirl On the Air" video magazine, Sybil Danning said that--through her many action adventure roles--she yearned to bring a "shero" to the screen; a heroine that other women could admire and emulate. This Austrian native has done just that during her long and distinguished career, playing everything from an intergalactic Valkyrie warrior in "Battle Beyond the Stars" to one of the title characters in "The Seven Magnificent Gladiators." And she's still at it; the vampire flick "The Last Revenants" is due out later this year.

Cynthia Rothrock: During the 1980s and 1990s, she was one of the few female performers to claim top billing in more than a dozen martial arts films, including the China O'Brien and Lady Dragon series. She also displayed a strong presence in the shattering rape drama "An Eye for an Eye" (in which she played a martial arts instructor who empowers women against potential attacks), and is also a film producer and active martial arts competitor. A petite person who stands at 5'3", she packs a powerful punch (and kick), as well as a keen sense of humor and strong emotion in each acting performance.

Michelle Yeoh: It's about time that Bond girls start kicking ass, and Michelle Yeoh did just that in 1997's "Tomorrow Never Dies." This distinguished martial artist also starred in the Academy Award-winning "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and appeared opposite Jackie Chan in Supercop. Also a film producer and a classically trained ballet dancer, she shone in "Memoirs of a Geisha" and once appeared in an action adventure buddy cop picture with Cynthia Rothrock; one titled, appropriately enough, "Yes Madam!"

Sigourney Weaver: One of the first female action stars and an inspiration to millions of young women, Sigourney Weaver gave new meaning and dimension to the term "heroine" in the sci fi series "Alien." As Officer Ellen Ripley, she showed both incredible physical stamina and a commanding presence; traits she also displayed in her portrayals of real life heroines; such as animal activist Dian Fossey in "Gorillas in the Mist" and Queen Isabella in "1492: Quest for Paradise." She brought a keen sense of humor to her role in the "Ghostbusters" series as well as to the feminist comedy "Working Girl"; and scored another hit with the Oscar-winning Avatar.

Brigitte Nielson: The 6-foot-plus Danish actress co-starred alongside Shwarzenegger in "Red Sonja" as the title character - a female warrior who battled armies and a tyrant (played by Sandahl Bergman) to free a realm, and in "Rocky IV" and "Cobra" she gave Sylvester Stallone a run for his money. The self-described Amazon was the body model for the comic-book character She-Hulk and did comedy in "Beverly Hills Cop II." She's still in the public eye as a reality-TV B-star in Italy and in The USA.

Pam Grier: One of the first--and most enduring--female action stars, Pam Grier took over the screen in the 1970s via powerhouse roles in "Coffey," "Foxy Brown," "Sheba, Baby" and "Friday Foster." In all of these films, she played tough professional women called to action by the death or endangerment of a family member; and in all, she showed a mastery of weapons and martial arts skills, not to mention some killer verbal comebacks. This noted cancer survivor reprised the role of Jackie Brown in Quentin Tarantino's 1997 film of the same name, and is set to release three films this year. As the tag-line for Coffy read, she's "the Baddest One Chick Hit Squad that ever hit town!"

Lucy Lawless: How can you say anything but "Xena: Warrior Princess"? That pretty much sums up the career of Lawless, who went brunette and became a 1990s icon with her portrayal of the barbarian queen who roamed Greek antiquity battling gods and romancing Hercules (Kevin Sorbo). Lawless went on to star in the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot as a model of the threatening Cylons, and nearly destroyed all of humanity. She's still a genre favorite and staple of Robert Tapert television. Her cameo in 2009's "Bitch Slap" exploitation flick was duly noted and appreciated.

Grace Jones: This Jamaican actress, who started as a singer, has long terrified audiences with her ferocious, androgynous persona. Though she only appeared in a few films in the USA and in Europe, she became an iconic figure when she played a fierce warrior in the 1984 fantasy-action film "Conan the Destroyer," and the immediate follow-up "A View to a Kill", a Bond film released in 1985. In 1986 she played a vampire in "Vamp." For all three films she won a coveted Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films.

Helen Mirren: I wanted to include an over-60 in this bunch, and Mirren is my favorite. Most notably, Mirren starred in an action film as recently as 2009's "RED", in which she knows her way around a machine gun. Mirren started acting on stage in Shakespeare, but when she played Morgana in the fantasy/action "Excalibur" she cemented herself as a great actress who could make even genre films be taken seriously by the mainstream public. Mirren, as a villain or as leader of the gang of women, could inspire solidarity and courage in any group of warriors, assassins, heros, or mercenaries.

Let's close this article with some of Sigourney Weaver's more uplifting statements about how women action actresses may get a better shot at kicking ass in films in the future because more women are directing action (Kathryn Bigelow, Lexi Alexander, and Karyn Kusama are just a few that come to mind in the last few years):