Stallone had already worked with Schwarzenegger in the 'Expendables', needed someone who could match him both physically and in terms of star power.
While casting Schwarzenegger was part of the story, Stallone also wanted to direct the Terminator star and 'Escape Plan's director Michael Hafstrom was open to the suggestion.
"Sly is a terrific director, an unbelievable writer and a very good actor. He had an endless number of ideas about how each scene could be better and Mikael was open-minded enough to listen. He is a very strong director with a very clear vision of what the scene should be and a perfectionist who rehearsed and tweaked and reshaped things until they worked," Schwarzenegger said.
The film is distributed by PVR pictures in India, and is all set for release on October 18.