Will There Be Another Rambo Movie?
Since Sylvester Stallone first brought the iconic war hero to life in 1982’s First Blood, Rambo has been a classic character referenced in nearly every corner of the pop culture zeitgeist. The last time we’ve officially seen the character on the big screen was in 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood, which seemed like a fairly definitive end for the character.
Of course, with so many legacy sequels being made for iconic characters of the 80s and 90s, many film fans are wondering if there will ever be another installment in the franchise.
Sylvester Stallone expressed interest in leading another installment, though Last Blood filmmaker Adrian Grunberg says that movie is the last one in the current franchise
Sylvester Stallone has expressed interest in leading another installment, though Last Blood filmmaker Adrian Grunberg described the outing as the closing of the circle, according to an exclusive interview with Games Radar from 2019. If another installment does come to fruition, Stallone has expressed interest in bringing the character of Rambo to a Native American reservation, in an effort to get the character in touch with his roots.
While no movement seems to be made on a potential sixth installment of the Rambo series at this time, anything could happen, as Stallone famously believed Rocky 3 would be his last foray into the Rocky franchise.
Of course, the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes would effectively put any active production into jeopardy, so perhaps it’s a good thing that no such production plans seem to exist for now.
Regardless, the Rambo franchise is widely regarded as one of the best in the history of action cinema, despite the diminishing returns the series has faced at the hands of critics.
First Blood follows John Rambo as he returns home from the Vietnam War amid a changing political landscape, which causes him to struggle to readjust to civilian life.
After spending some time in a small town in rural Washington, Rambo manages to get under the skin of the local sheriff, who orders him to stay out of his neighborhood. After facing a great deal of harassment from the local police, Rambo becomes the subject of an all-out manhunt when he kills an officer in self defense.
In the original planned ending for First Blood, Rambo is ultimately killed, leaving no room for future sequels. Luckily for audiences, this ending was scrapped and replaced with the protagonist facing jail time, allowing a series of films to follow his dramatic exploits over the course of Sylvester Stallone’s storied career. The characters’ first return to the silver screen came in the form of 1985’s Rambo: First Blood Part 2.
Part 2 opens on Rambo as he waits out his days in jail until his former commanding officer offers him an opportunity to get out. Rambo agrees to take a trip to Vietnam to locate American prisoners of war in exchange for the expunging of his criminal record. Of course, plans go horribly awry, causing Rambo to go rogue and face off against the forces of the American army once more.
Rambo is known more for his penchant for explosives than for his emotional journey and deep ties to the true stories of trauma faced by American veterans
By this point in popular culture, the character had all but become unrecognizable from the thematically deep origins of First Blood. In 1988’s Rambo 3, as well as subsequent films, the character had taken on a role as cinema’s greatest action hero, known more for his penchant for explosives than for his emotional journey and deep ties to the true stories of trauma faced by American veterans.
In Rambo 3, Rambo volunteers for a top-secret undercover mission in Afghanistan, with the intention of saving his former Colonel, Sam Trautman. After initially refusing to engage with the mission, Rambo agrees to go in guns blazing, in order to defeat enemy forces while assisting the allied mujahideen. For many years, this was considered a bookend for the Rambo story, with no new installments being made for 20 years.
When the 2008 film, simply titled Rambo, first hit the scene, audiences had garnered some hope that the legacy sequel would serve as a return to form. Unfortunately, the film failed to live up to expectations, earning among the lowest audience scores of any film in the franchise. The same can be said of the most recent installment, 2019’s Last Blood, which many consider to be the final nail in the coffin of the iconic series.
