Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, writer/directors of Crank, Crank: High Voltage and Gamer are working on a potential new hourlong drama for NBC called Zeroes, which will focus on a team of operatives called in as last resorts to solve high-intensity situations. According to Taylor, it'll be the kind of non-stop ridiculousness you'd expect from them:

[We wanted to do] a crisis show that doesn't bore you with all of the buildup leading to the crisis... We want to drop right into it and sustain the absolute most berserk state of crisis, when all of the options have been exhausted. We want to take that last 60 minutes and sustain it for the entire show.

Neveldine and Taylor are currently writing the pilot, which they also plan to direct. We may have found our new favorite show of the 2010/2011 season already.

NBC has 'Zeroes' interest in drama project [Hollywood Reporter]

Crank: High Voltage is the sequel to Jason Statham's frenetic sex-and-violence vehicle Crank. The premise of the first flick is that the hyperactive, superstrong street scum Chelios (Statham) gets injected with an evil Chinese gang drug. If he ever lets his adrenaline fall below psychotic levels, he'll die. Though he falls out of a helicopter at the end of Crank, he manages to survive into this sequel in grand videogame style. Some Chinese gang dudes peel him off the pavement, give him open heart surgery in a massage parlor (managing to get only a little cigarette ash into his chest cavity), steal his mega-heart, and fit him out with a total artificial heart powered by a laptop battery.

Of course, Chelios is awake during his open-heart surgery. He seems pretty content to just chill on the table until the doctors let it slip that the next organ they're going to harvest is his monstrously huge cock. That's when he gets up, kills everybody in sight, and sets out on his new quest: To get his awesome heart back. His first bit of intel comes from the lone remaining gangster after the slaughterfest. The guy is begging for his life on his hands and knees, but he won't tell who has the heart. So Chelios dunks the tip of his semi-automatic gun in oil, and jams it deep in the guy's ass.

This movie is some fucked up shit, yo. And it's glorious. This is the videogame-amped, YouTube-poisoned, porn-soaked, gang-controlled future that suburban America fears most. And so it's nothing short of cathartic to see every pop nightmare unscroll before our eyes in a lurid parody like the best dirty joke that Larry Flynt ever dreamed up. Crank 2 is thrilling because the filmmakers have blasted away their self-censorship mechanisms and let flow the unexpurgated contents of their blackest (and silliest) hearts.

Chelios' Los Angeles is pretty much the same semi-imaginary city where Grand Theft Auto takes place, a world of gangbangers and whores who exist entirely to be killed, and hopefully in a way that is memorably bloody. Just when you think the action can't get any more fucked up, Chelios will follow the gangsters who've got his heart into a strip club. Where a guy is being tortured by having his elbows chopped off. And strippers who've been shot in the chest run through the club screaming as silicon goo streams down their stomachs and their breasts deflate.

To keep his heart battery from running down, Chelios has to keep shocking himself. His underground heart surgeon, doing medical research while boning yet another hooker, checks in on the cell phone every once in a while to dispense heart-maintenance advice to our beleaguered hero. Try rebooting it by clamping jumper cables to your nipples. Try tazering your cock. Try creating a bunch of friction by rubbing another person! That last order ends well, with Chelios fucking his girlfriend (the hilarious Amy Smart) on the racetrack while a bunch of horses run over their heads, flashing their horsey cocks.

Meanwhile, we take several gratuitous detours into sex-violence slapstick, as Chelios has to cross a picket line of striking porn stars (yes there's a cameo from Ron Jeremy), and meets up with a gay sidekick who has "full body Tourettes" (WTF?) but later saves Chelios' ass with his giant gang of butch queers. No surprise that this movie exhibits Grand Theft Auto's idea of multiculturalism, too: Everybody (including the white dude) is a racist stereotype; everybody is a sexist stereotype; and everybody is equal in their sleazy, homicidal abandon. It's Jackass Darwinism - survival of the biggest fucking asshole.

Eventually it turns out that a Chinese gang leader – played with parodic racist aplomb by David Carradine – has installed Chelios' heart in his own chest. So it's a race to get the pumper out of Carradine's chest and back into Chelios. Things get even more science fictional as our characters head into a showdown on Catalina Island that plays like a hellish cross between the movies of Ron Jeremy and Eli Roth. And by that I mean: OMGWTFBBQ.

I've been accused before of being immoral for enjoying movies like Crank 2 – for admiring their savage honesty, their brutal parodic punch. There is something undeniably disturbing about a story that is so plainly intended to degrade every character in it. And yet that is its charm. Nobody tried to excuse the sex and violence here in the service of art or politics or some kind of warning about the nasty future our terrible videogame habits will lead to. But at the same time, Crank 2 does recognize its own self-destructive sensibility. That's why the movie's refrain – repeated in many languages, by many people - is "Fuck you Chelios!"

Crank is so crazy, especially the scene where you and Jason have sex in public. So how did you top the scene like that in Crank 2?

They definitely topped it. They basically took the same premise from Crank, but now he has an artificial heart. So he has to make friction with his body to keep the battery charged so he can keep his heart working... They found many more outrageous things that you can do to keep his heart rate up.

Involving you specifically?

Yes there is another Chinatown scene involving me specifically.

I read that you pole dance in this movie, how did you prepare for that?

Well, because of her scene in Chinatown last movie, she became very sexually liberated and decided to use pole dancing to continue that exploration. I took a number of pole dancing classes to prepare for Crank 2 where she's pole dancing happily.

I heard you and Bai Ling get in a big cat fight, what was that like?

She's hilarious, we actually have a cat fight in the strip bar. She kind of tags along with Jason and my character is stripping and has a boyfriend played by Corey Haim. My character thinks he's dead, and then he shows up. There's a little competition between the girl that he's been tagging along with [and me]. It's really funny. She has this really wild energy.

Did you kick her ass? Was it choreographed?

Yes, it was choreographed. We have to look good in the film. It's so much fun, we have a really great big bottle to work with. We're pushing and grabbing each others hair.

When the directors come to you (with outrageous scenes) how game are you to run through these crazy scenes?

Initially, I'm excited to do it because it's so outrageous. I really enjoyed doing the first one, I had so much fun filming it. It's another way to live out a fantasy, because it's not real life, because you couldn't do this in real life. It's completely over the top. Half the takes are messed up because we end up laughing, it's so funny. I'm not scared to look like a complete fool in front of someone.

What was it like roughing up Corey Haim and working with him?

He was a lovely person and so great to work with. He was so grateful to be back at work after all of this time. He has really good comedic timing, he plays my pimp/boyfriend in the film. And he has this really funny mullet and he thinks he's such a tough guy.

Is Jason Statham always down for getting naked on screen and having sex in front of thousands like in the first movie?

No, he's much more shy than that. He's a great badass on screen. But he's definitely shy at times. It helped that we were both being so completely outrageous together. It feels like you are on a roller coaster ride, and you're climbing up the tracks at the top and you know you're going to surrender to this crazy ride. That's sort of what it is when you're doing these crazy scenes in these movies... It has that real adrenaline rush because you're putting everything on the line, and hoping everything to comes out OK.

Can you talk about any particular moment that got your adrenaline up?

We definitely have another Chinatown scene. I don't know if I want to give away. I'll just give you two words: Horse Racetrack.

What is the craziest thing you had to do in this movie, where you couldn't believe you were doing?

It's hard to say [in] this one. There's a part in the film where I'm getting sprayed with a firehose down a horse racetrack. It's one of those massive water hoses that can literally spray 30 feet. That just felt so disgusting and I'm in that mud, there is horse shit in the mud and I felt dirty and gross and I just needed a shower.

Has there been any talk if this movie is successful will there be a 3?

I know definitely that they are talking about a third film but I have no idea what the story would be.

Crank 2: High Voltage is released Friday April 17th.

Chev Chelios is back in Crank 2, kicking ass despite being saddled with a mechanical heart that needs to be pumped up every few moments with electricity. And probably having sex with Amy Smart in a public place, again.

Crank: High Voltage is being released in theaters on April 17, 2009.

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More pics at the link. [L.A. Times]