Rambo 5 May Have a Pulse After All
Posted 08.22.11 by Ryan
We first reported on plans for a fifth Rambo movie back in 2009, when John Rambo was reportedly set to head south of the border to Mexico and fight drug lords and human traffickers in order to rescue a young, kidnapped girl. Sylvester Stallone was set to reprise his role and direct as well.
Weeks later, the plot of the movie changed to one that pitted Rambo against a "feral beast" that Stallone described as "a very psychological film about sophisticated man fighting primitive man." Stallone eventually reversed the plans for the sequel back to the original storyline, about six months before he
scrapped it altogether. "For Rambo to go on another adventure might be, I think, misinterpreted as a mercenary gesture and not necessary," Stallone said at the time. However, it doesn't look like Stallone is entirely finished with the character.
In an interview with FEARnet, screenwriter Sean Hood (Conan the Barbarian) revealed that he's been writing a Rambo movie.
I recently finished a first draft of Rambo: Last Stand (Rambo 5) for Millennium films, based on a story idea by Sylvester Stallone. Hopefully, Mr. Stallone will eventually have the time and the inclination to do another Rambo.
Hood explained more about his involvement on Last Stand to Empire, revealing that Stallone has been more than casual in his involvement.
I met with Mr Stallone twice last year. He gave me a book, an older screenplay, and about twenty pages he'd written himself to use as inspiration for the last chapter of the Rambo saga.
Hood revealed that Last Stand would ignore both of the "feral beast" and Mexico storylines, and that it would not be the prequel Stallone admitted he wouldn't be against pursuing last year. Instead, Hood says, Last Stand would be "more in line with the small-town thriller of First Blood." The title seems to indicate that this sequel is intended to be the final installment in the franchise, but whether that will be enough to convince Stallone to make it is still up in the air.
As of now, I don't know whether Mr. Stallone will actually do it. Right now, as I understand it, he has his hands full with Bullet to the Head and Expendables 2. But Millennium films did hire me to complete the screenplay and realise his story, and my hope is that he'll eventually be inspired to do one more Rambo film, with the tone of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.
Director Walter Hill's Bullet to the Head, aka Headshot, sees Stallone as a New Orleans hitman who teams with a New York City cop (Fast Five's Sung Kang) to get revenge on the men that killed their respective partners. It started shooting last month. No word yet on when Expendables 2 is set to start, but Simon West (Con Air) is set to direct the sequel, with Lionsgate scheduling it for an August 17, 2012, release date.