‘Rambo’ Reboot in the Works Without Sylvester Stallone, Which Doesn’t Sound Like ‘Rambo’ At All
It’s been quite A Day, and we’ll forgive you for being distracted by the latest political news (aka What Did Anthony Weiner Do This Time?!) — as such, we also regret to inform you that the director of the recent action thriller Criminal is helming a new reboot of Rambo that will not feature Sylvester Stallone, which, if our science is correct, does not sound like a Rambo movie at all.
THR reports that Ariel Vromen is set to helm the reboot of Stallone’s classic action franchise. Brooks McLaren (if that is your real name), who scripted the upcoming action thriller Line of Sight (which Ben Affleck is developing at Warner Bros.) is penning the screenplay for the new reboot, titled Rambo: New Blood.
Instead of taking the recently popular “legacyquel” approach and having Stallone pass the torch to another actor as he did in last year’s Creed, the new Rambo film will recast the iconic role with a younger star. The idea is to approach John Rambo like James Bond — more of a mantle than a man, which, if you’ve seen the Rambo films, is an incredibly silly idea.
Based on David Morrell’s 1974 novel First Blood, the first Rambo movie was released in 1982 and starred Stallone as former Green Beret John Rambo, who is forced to use his expert combat skills to evade a deranged small town sheriff and his underlings in the nearby mountains. Rambo: First Blood Part II was released in 1985, followed by Rambo III in 1988. It would be 20 years before Stallone reprised the role again, this time for 2008’s effectively-titled Rambo.
Vromen most recently helmed this year’s Criminal, an action thriller starring Ryan Reynolds, Gal Gadot and Kevin Costner. His previous credits include 2012’s The Iceman, starring Michael Shannon as notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski.