Mike Fleming

EXCLUSIVE: Mickey Rourke is negotiating to star with Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell and Christopher Walken in Seven Psychopaths, the next film by In Bruges writer/director Martin McDonagh. That means Rourke will not be reprising his role in the Simon West-directed The Expendables 2. Rourke did the first film as a favor to director Sylvester Stallone, but  it doesn’t sound like there was a big financial incentive to return for a reprise on the surprise hit.

Rourke, who next stars alongside Henry Cavill in Relativity’s big ticket Tarsem Singh-directed Immortals, will instead spend the fall joining McDonagh and his In Bruges star Farrell, who plays a screenwriter in Los Angeles who struggles to find the handle on his script, called Seven Psychopaths. The screenwriter gets drawn into the dognapping escapades of his friends (played by Rockwell and Walken). Once the beloved Shih Tzu owned by a psychopathic gangster goes missing, the screenwriter finds himself fueled with all the drama he needs for his screenplay, if he can stay alive long enough to write it all down. The ICM-repped Rourke is trying to get back to the awards season form he found himself in a couple of years ago when he got Oscar-nominated for The Wrestler. McDonagh got nominated for his In Bruges script.

CBS Films acquired the rights to distribute Seven Psychopaths in the United States. The film is produced by Graham Broadbent and Peter Czernin, with Tessa Ross executive producing.