As a certain bandana sporting, M60 wielding, PTSD addled Vietnam war veteran once said, “Nothing is over! Nothing! You just don’t turn it off!” It’s a line, spoken by Sylvester Stallone’s John Rambo in 1982 action epic First Blood, that in context decries generational cycles of violence and the endless horror of war. It’s also a line that, given the four sequels Ted Kotcheff’s movie would go on to spawn, pretty accurately captures the Rambo franchise as a whole. Which is why now, six years after Rambo: Last Blood seemingly put the final nail in the coffin of on one of cinema’s great anti-heroes, we’re getting a prequel: John Rambo. But, dear reader, don’t roll your eyes just yet, because this isn’t any old prequel — it’s one coming from Sisu director Jalmari Helander!
Yes, per Deadline‘s reporting, The Hitman’s Bodyguard and Expendables action outfit Millennium Media are hitting the Croisette at Cannes this week with a package prequelising the original First Blood, boasting Helander in the directorial hotseat and a script from Black Adam duo Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. Though the movie’s plot is under wraps for the time being, it doesn’t take too much extrapolating to deduce that John Rambo will introduce us to the one-man army when he was actually serving in Vietnam. And with Helander at the helm, whose reverse-Nazisploitation revenger Sisu demonstrated the director’s proclivity for extreme violence and claret coloured splatter, we’re pretty confident that there’ll be no shying away from the effed-up atrocities it took for Rambo to become the man we meet in First Blood.
”I have been the biggest fan of Rambo since the age of 11,” said the Finnish filmmaker in a statement accompanying the project’s announcement. “It is so surreal to be in a situation where I can actually make my own Rambo movie. The chain of events that got me here makes, in a fantastic way, my whole childhood make sense. I can’t wait to bring the greatest action hero back to the big screen where he belongs.”
While Sly Stallone is apparently aware of this new Rambo project, at this point there’s no suggestion he’ll feature in the film in any capacity. Instead, early casting calls are already underway for the young actor who’ll fill in this pivotal chapter in Rambo’s history. With filming planned to start as early as this October out in Thailand, and Helander — already readying Sisu 2 for release later this year — revved up and raring to go, perhaps new blood is exactly what this iconic franchise needs. For now, then, John Rambo, colour us intrigued…
