Sylvester Stallone’s time playing John Rambo may be at an end, but the story of his troubled Vietnam War veteran will continue as a prequel is in development from SISU director Jalmari Helander with Noah Centineo set to take over the titular role. While still in the early stages, the Rambo prequel is expected to begin filming in Thailand next year, and has now secured a distribution deal.
MovieWeb’s Joe Deckelmeier caught up with Helander as he promoted SISU: Road to Revenge, the sequel to 2022’s bloody action hit, and asked him about his upcoming deep-dive into the history of one of cinema’s most enduring action heroes. When questioned about whether his Rambo would come with the same level of inventive brutality of SISU, Helander said:
“I’m not sure. It’s going to be my take on Rambo, that’s for sure, but it’s a process. Still going on. I can’t answer it yet.”
John Rambo made his debut in 1982’s First Blood as a man broken by his war experiences. Although the franchise became known for blazing gunfire and Stallone’s muscly vet taking down bad guys, the first movie was as much a psychological thriller as an action one, so how will Helander approach the story of how John Rambo came to be the character we know? Seemingly with the same combination of drama and action as the original movie.
“It’s a story about what happened to this soldier in Vietnam that made him the man we all saw in First Blood. But of course, it’s not like a drama of somebody having a mental breakdown, it’s, of course, an action film at the same time.”
The ‘Rambo’ Franchise Has Been Acquired by a New Distributor
There has been talk of a prequel to Rambo for some time now, with whispers going back several years, and the fact that it is finally moving forward is exciting for fans of the franchise who have been looking for some new blood to follow Stallone’s almost certainly final outing in Rambo: Last Blood in 2019.
As reported by THR today, the Rambo franchise has now been secured in “a wide-ranging rights deal” between Lionsgate and Millennium Media. Lionsgate will now be distributing the John Rambo prequel, and have a “lead producing role” in any Rambo TV projects. There had previously been discussions about a Rambo TV series, which was the original plan for the prequel before it pivoted to a movie release, but it seems that the new distribution deal has been put in place with the intention of a TV venture still being on the cards.
Meanwhile, Stallone recently added his own weight to the new take on Rambo, telling EW that he believed the prequel could be “fantastic, if they hit all the marks.” Sharing his own view on the past of John Rambo, Stallone said:
“I always thought of Rambo as very, highly popular. He was captain of the football team, he was getting straight A’s. I mean, he was just that kind of guy, valedictorian. And then the war broke him down and turned him into this havoc machine, suffering from PTSD. I wanted to see that evolution of, ‘I can’t wait to go to war. This is going to be fun. This’ll be over in three weeks.'”
Like many fans, Stallone could now get to see that evolution play out in the new movie, and it will hopefully live up to some very high expectations.
- Release Date
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October 22, 1982
- Runtime
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93 minutes
- Director
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Ted Kotcheff
- Producers
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Buzz Feitshans
