Action-Adventure Rambo Reboot in the Works

[Breogan]

I wouldn't ask for either, yet knowing one or the other were inevitable, rather than a reboot/rehash, I would rather a prequel.
If done right and it actually ads something to the story and character. (yeah, unlikely).
Should the title of the thread be changed, or is the difference no longer distinguished?

I imagine a prequel would be based on his team:

In the novelization and film Rambo's Special Forces team, known as Baker Team, consisted of: Messner, Manuel Ortega, Colletta, Jorgenson, Joseph Danforth, Robert Krakhauer, and Delmar Barry. ....all of who were killed in action in various horrific ways. Barry who later died of illness from the war's agent orange chemicals.

Yet, the whole point and pathos of the character is about finding himself at the point where he is meaninglessly alone, unwanted and the last of his ilk.
They are not ever adding anything more to that, sure the idea of seeing a "younger" version of him in action with his whole team, till only him and Delmar Barry are left, might be thrilling, yet it's just more meaningless cashing in on the "brand", no real surprise.

 

[DarkKnight88]

I wouldn't ask for either, yet knowing one or the other were inevitable, rather than a reboot/rehash, I would rather a prequel.
If done right and it actually ads something to the story(yeah, unlikely).

I imagine a prequel would be based on his team.

That’s exactly what this film most likely will be.

Though, if they want to “franchise” it, I assume they’ll have Rambo and his team on different missions.

 

[J.Drangal]

The original intention was for Rambo to represent all men returning from war. Even though the sequels strayed far from this theme, giving him now also a past as a super soldier (because we all know that's what they're going to do) is so dumb that I wouldn't even call it an idea.

Furthermore, I believe there are no Rambo fans. There are Stallone fans who want to see him blow everything up left and right. Unless a new adaptation of the novel is made, any attempt to develop or expand the existing franchise without its charismatic main actor is doomed to failure.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I just cannot see this doing well financially. The audience for this will be people over 50 who stopped going to movies. Rambo doesn't have an audience anymore, and Last Blood was one of the worst action movies I have ever seen. No interest in this at all

 

[Pittman4Two]

As a diehard Stallone, I wouldn't think another installment with Sly would work obviously, much less a "Rambo" movie without him.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Trump will probably give Stallone a Kennedy Center Honor for this stupid s***. They’ll just play a 40-minute supercut of Rambo slaughtering people because it’s not woke. Who hoo free speech.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Rambo is against the government so I don’t know lol

 

[Deck Rickard]

Stallone is a POS

Kiss, Sylvester Stallone among those Trump announces as Kennedy Center Honorees

Actor Sylvester Stallone, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and rock band Kiss will be recognized as Kennedy Center Honors recipients, in the first awards gala held since President Trump’s overhaul …

thehill.com

 

[Mani-Man]

Stallone is a POS

Kiss, Sylvester Stallone among those Trump announces as Kennedy Center Honorees

Actor Sylvester Stallone, disco singer Gloria Gaynor and rock band Kiss will be recognized as Kennedy Center Honors recipients, in the first awards gala held since President Trump’s overhaul …

thehill.com

Stallone and Kiss are not a surprise sadly...but Gloria Gaynor is MAGA? I didnt expect that.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Stallone and Kiss are not a surprise sadly...but Gloria Gaynor is MAGA? I didnt expect that.

Yeah I hadn’t heard that until now either.

I guess she will survive while the rest of us are going to suffer and die.

I used to like that song but for years I’ve always associated it with this former friend of mine who would sing it at karaoke to serve her ego (she thought she had the greatest voice ever and would openly mock other singers she thought sucked). Oh and she turned out to be a Trumper eventually.

 

[Deck Rickard]

Anyway.

This brings me to something I’ve been struggling with and it would be good to get different perspectives on it.

Is the original Rocky movie racist?

Look, Rocky is one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m not a big sports movie person but that one has meant a lot to me for my entire life. I’m originally from Pennsylvania and have a lot of ties to Philly. And I grew up watching that movie with my parents on the regular.

Yet now… when I look back at it, and knowing the type of person Stallone actually is, it makes me question his intentions with that movie. Because it’s a film made in 1976 (not the easiest times for Black Americans) about a white underdog who goes this distance against a rich and powerful Black athlete. It’s essentially about a mediocre white man challenging Black excellence.

Now, granted, Creed could have been any ethnicity and Rocky could have challenged him and it might not have mattered. But I don’t know. I think about it now and it bothers me. And it makes me side eye Stallone even further now that he’s distanced himself from Michael B. Jordan’s Creeed films (which are all pretty excellent and provide a really good insight into the Black experience). Just something I’ve been thinking about. I’m not saying I’m right or directly calling the movie racist but I question whether it might be.

 

[DarkKnight88]

Is the original Rocky movie racist?

Look, Rocky is one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m not a big sports movie person but that one has meant a lot to me for my entire life. I’m originally from Pennsylvania and have a lot of ties to Philly. And I grew up watching that movie with my parents on the regular.

Yet now… when I look back at it, and knowing the type of person Stallone actually is, it makes me question his intentions with that movie. Because it’s a film made in 1976 (not the easiest times for Black Americans) about a white underdog who goes this distance against a rich and powerful Black athlete. It’s essentially about a mediocre white man challenging Black excellence.

Now, granted, Creed could have been any ethnicity and Rocky could have challenged him and it might not have mattered. But I don’t know. I think about it now and it bothers me. And it makes me side eye Stallone even further now that he’s distanced himself from Michael B. Jordan’s Creeed films (which are all pretty excellent and provide a really good insight into the Black experience). Just something I’ve been thinking about. I’m not saying I’m right or directly calling the movie racist but I question whether it might be.

It’s not.

You’re reading into it too much when it’s simply was inspired by this.

Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And because Stallone is a Trump fan doesn’t make him racist either. I mean, come on. Nothing in his history indicates that. In fact he supported Ryan Coogler and gave him his shot.

I hate his support of Trump, but let’s not look for things that are or were never there.

 

[Deck Rickard]

It’s not.

You’re reading into it too much when it’s simply was inspired by this.

Muhammad Ali vs. Chuck Wepner - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And because Stallone is a Trump fan doesn’t make him racist either. I mean, come on. Nothing in his history indicates that. In fact he supported Ryan Coogler and gave him his shot.

I hate his support of Trump, but let’s not look for things that are or were never there.

Thanks for this; I wasn’t aware of this inspiration so I’ll read up on it. And I am glad he helped Coogler, who has quickly become one of our best filmmakers.

That said, I take issue with the idea that Stallone’s Trump support doesn’t make him a racist. He may not have always been, however, when you put your support behind a man who does the things that he’s doing, you can’t just untangle yourself from it. Because Stallone, even more so than your average red hat wearing Nazi, has power and influence that is helping fuel Trump’s hateful agenda. That monster is trying to turn the nation’s capital into a police state just to get revenge on the fact that the Dustrict overwhelmingly voted for a Black woman and has a Black woman mayor. But here’s Stallone, about to be honored at the Kennedy Center (which Trump did a hostile takeover of just to deliberately screw the LGBTQ community among others) because Stallone is “not woke.” So yeah, Stallone doesn’t get to say he’s hot a racist or a homophobe or a transphobe or a misogynist. At the very least, he a big fan of a serial rapist. But then, he has his own allegations against him so it’s no surprise there.

 

[Sithborg]

At a certain point, tolerance of racism means you are racist.

 

[Lily Adler]

Will it be Alan Ritchson or Henry Cavill and will it be on Prime?

 

[Spider-Fan]

Anyway.

This brings me to something I’ve been struggling with and it would be good to get different perspectives on it.

Is the original Rocky movie racist?

Look, Rocky is one of my favorite movies of all time. I’m not a big sports movie person but that one has meant a lot to me for my entire life. I’m originally from Pennsylvania and have a lot of ties to Philly. And I grew up watching that movie with my parents on the regular.

Yet now… when I look back at it, and knowing the type of person Stallone actually is, it makes me question his intentions with that movie. Because it’s a film made in 1976 (not the easiest times for Black Americans) about a white underdog who goes this distance against a rich and powerful Black athlete. It’s essentially about a mediocre white man challenging Black excellence.

Now, granted, Creed could have been any ethnicity and Rocky could have challenged him and it might not have mattered. But I don’t know. I think about it now and it bothers me. And it makes me side eye Stallone even further now that he’s distanced himself from Michael B. Jordan’s Creeed films (which are all pretty excellent and provide a really good insight into the Black experience). Just something I’ve been thinking about. I’m not saying I’m right or directly calling the movie racist but I question whether it might be.

I dont think so cause Apollo Creed was based on Muhammad Ali, as someone linked to what inspired Rocky. Stallone I wouldn't be shocked if he was racist given he is MAGA and all. But Rocky specifically, no. I don't think the movie is racist

 

[blueharvest]

Sylvester Stallone Says He Wanted To Direct A Young ‘Rambo’ Movie Himself As An AI Movie, Talks New Memoir

Sylvester Stallone reveals he once pitched directing a young ‘Rambo’ movie as an AI experiment, and reacts to Peter Farrelly’s ‘Rocky’ film.

theplaylist.net

 

[Pennywise]

Rambo prequel director says AI de-aging isn’t good enough for Sylvester Stallone to return

'I'm always talking about Rambo. It's weird that I'm going to do a Rambo film now.'

www.polygon.com

Sylvester Stallone recently made the news by revealing that he was interested in reviving his character John Rambo in a prequel movie, playing him as a teenage soldier in the Vietnam War. Speaking to Screen Rant and to The Playlist’s Bingeworthy podcast, Stallone said he’d pitched a prequel project that would re-imagine Rambo’s history in the war, using AI de-aging technology so that the 79-year-old actor could play the 18-year-old character. “It isn't a big stretch,” he told The Playlist.

Finnish director Jalmari Helander — who’s set to direct the prequel John Rambo for Millennium Media — disagrees. “I'm not sure the technology is there yet to pull that off,” he tells Polygon out of the 2025 Fantastic Fest film festival. Helander was on the ground in Austin, Texas in support of his upcoming action movie, Sisu: Road to Revenge, which opens theatrically on Nov. 21.

Sisu: Road to Revenge includes some obvious CG stunts, like a show-stopping moment where Aatami uses explosives to send a tank flying through the air. “[A movie] has to be entertaining,” Helander said. “I think the reason to go to a cinema is to see something you haven't seen before, and be free of all kinds of rules and laws — especially laws of physics.”

But he says his prequel John Rambo, which has The Recruit star Noah Centineo booked for the title role, will probably be more restrained. “I'm pretty sure I'm not going that crazy in Rambo,” he said. “It might be a bit weird — we’ll see. I have to find a new way to approach [the action in this movie]. What's my Rambo movie going to look like? I don't even know myself yet. It's something that will happen when I'm shooting.”

Helander says that even though he found inspiration in the Rambo movies, he only recently felt it would be possible to take on one himself. “I was asked many times, do I want to do Rambo?” he said. “And I always said no. But then we had the idea of actually doing the origin story. That made me realize that I could actually do it, that I have a way in. I'm always talking about Rambo. It's weird that I'm going to do a Rambo film now.”

‘Sisu 2’ Director Reveals Why Noah Centineo Has What It Takes to Lead His ‘John Rambo’ Prequel Movie [Exclusive]

Sisu director Jalmari Helander discusses casting Noah Centineo as John Rambo in the upcoming prequel film, comparing his charisma to Jorma Tommila.

collider.com

Helander cited the first Rambo film, First Blood, as one of the films that got him into action movies, and discussed wanting to recapture that film's energy, with less emphasis on the darkness of the later entries in the franchise. He told Nemiroff:

"I could talk a whole day about this. What First Blood did to me when I was 10 years old basically changed my life. I was playing Rambo every f***ing day, being in a forest with my Rambo knife, and doing it basically, even now. [Laughs] But what's my tone of making a Rambo film? That was the biggest question for me. It opened up to me when I started to watch all the Rambo films with my son, who's 11 now. At first, he was like, “Eh, I don't want to watch this s***,” but when we started First Blood, he was like, “Oh.” I saw the things he liked, which were exactly the same things I loved when I was a kid. We went forward with Rambo 2, Rambo 3, and in the fourth one, my son said, “I don't want to watch this anymore. This is not cool anymore.” Because it goes so dark, like basically the bad guys raping children and stuff. The magic wasn't there anymore, especially the last one. That's so dark. Too dark for me. So, I'm trying to make a Rambo movie that will put a new generation of 10-year-olds in the forest playing Rambo. That's my goal."

Helander also compared Noah Centineo, who'll be taking up the iconic role from Sylvester Stallone, to his Sisu leading man, Jorma Tommila: "They have charisma. When I'm watching Noah just sitting somewhere, not doing anything important, I can feel that there is something in him, like Jorma has that. He's easy to watch in a way that most people are not. They look good on a camera, but you either have it or you don't."

 

[Deck Rickard]

Stallone playing a valedictorian?

Amazing that he actually found a way to miscast himself as Rambo.

 

[DarkKnight88]

a Rambo movie that will put a new generation of 10-year-olds in the forest playing Rambo.

WTF? Somebody missed the point of First Blood.

Rambo didn’t become a cartoon until the second film.