Sylvester Stallone’s two major franchises appear to have both moved on without him. Stallone has walked away from playing Rocky Balboa ever again, though that franchise seems to be in the capable hands of Michael B. Jordan. Stallone’s other franchise, Rambo, also looks like it will be continuing without him, and the actor thinks that this could be a good thing as well.
It was recently reported that a Rambo prequel is currently in development, with Noah Centineo currently attached to play the young John Rambo in a Vietnam War-era story. Speaking with ET, Stallone admits to not knowing a great deal about Centineo as an actor, but he thinks the idea of a Rambo prequel has a lot of possibilities. Stallone said...
I don’t know much about the young man, but it’s going to be quite a challenge. I just hope they — I had an idea for that, too. I think it could be fantastic, I really do, if they hit all the marks.
Stallone makes reference to his own idea for a Rambo prequel, which he floated a while back, though this new project isn’t related to that one in any official capacity. Stallone already had a strong vision for what a young John Rambo would have looked like, and thinks the story of a kid with incredible promise who finds himself stuck in the quagmire of Vietnam would make for a compelling narrative. Stallone described it, saying…
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 gonna be fun. This’ll be over in three weeks.’
While the Rambo movies are, overall, a fairly traditional “one man against the world” action franchise, the first movie, First Blood, saw John Rambo as a Vietnam veteran clearly suffering from PTSD who finds himself in a new kind of warfare in the Pacific Northwest when he inadvertently runs afoul of a biased sheriff. The trauma of his war experience is clear there, so any prequel would have to show those events and how they turned Rambo into the man he became.
The most recent movie in the franchise was 2019's Rambo: Last Blood, which, despite its title, left the door open to more sequels. Last Blood wasn't a critical winner, nor was it a box office success. It doesn't seem like there's much call for another Stallone movie, but a prequel has the potential to use the franchise name to create something new.
There are a handful of specific references to Rambo’s time in Vietnam throughout the films. Stallone hopes that the prequel makes a point to really show what he calls the “madness” of the experience for Rambo, saying…
I hope they capture that, because what went on in Saigon, the madness, they touched a little bit on that in Apocalypse Now. If they hit that hard, it could be great.
With Noah Centineo currently working on the Street Fighter movie, he’s already in Rambo shape. It’s unclear when this prequel will go into production, but whether or not Sylvester Stallone is involved, he’ll clearly be watching.
