Rambo

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featherstone45

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"Rambo" Back on Duty
Wednesday June 1 8:47 PM ET

Rambo is coming out of hiding and looking for some fresh blood.

After a 17-year layoff, Sylvester Stallone is ready to reprise his role as everyone's favorite muscle-bound Green Beret for a fourth installment in the popular 1980s film franchise.

After protracted legal wrangling, the rights to Rambo were snapped up in 1997 by Miramax's genre division, Dimension Films. But a planned Rambo IV stalled. Now, with Miramax heads Harvey and Bob Weinstein exiting Disney, they have sold the sequel rights for the intrepid character to Nu Image/Millennium Films, and the project is finally moving forward.

In addition to breaking the old red bandanna out of mothballs, Stallone, 58, will write the screenplay.

"I've signed the deal and I have the old headband, machine gun and bow and arrow ready to go. I am looking forward to showing movie fans the real action hero again," Stallone said in a statement.

Stallone, who earned an Oscar nomination for writing the original Rocky and who has directed such flicks as Staying Alive and Rocky V, compared Rambo IV to such 1970's revenge classics as Straw Dogs and Deliverance.

The sequel opens with our brooding Vietnam vet finally settling down with a wife and child, while still working for the military. (Sadly, Richard Crenna, who costarred in the three previous installments as Rambo's longtime commander, Colonel Samuel Trautman, will be MIA from the new sequel, havingdied in 2003.)

Though he's "assimilated into the tapestry of America," workplace stress forces Rambo to leave the big city and move his family to the boonies. Their lives are upended however by white supremacists unhappy about a part-Navajo man moving into the area. When the racists take Rambo's 10-year-old daughter hostage, dad is forced back into action to rescue her.

According to Stallone, the new film will be similar in tone to the "character-driven" franchise-launching First Blood (1982), in which Rambo uses his battle-honed skills to get even with a small-town sheriff, as opposed to the more cartoonish action-packed sequels. Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) was the blockbuster film of the series, featuring Rambo returned to Vietnam to rescue fellow POWs; 1988's Rambo III found our hero battling the Soviet army with the help of Afghan guerrillas.

If Rambo is able to tap into moviegoers' rah-rah nationalist fervor that made him so popular during Reaganmania of the '80s, Nu Image boss Avi Lerner promises more first blood adventures.

"It's a franchise," Lerner says. "If number four works, then you have a number five."

That’s not the only collaboration the company has with Stallone. Nu Image is also developing a Stallone script on the life of famed poet Edgar Allen Poe. Stallone also plans to direct the film. (Quoth the raven: "Yo!")

Stallone's recent stab at reality TV as cohost of NBC's The Contender wasn't successful, getting canceled after one lackluster season. He also has been working on a new Rocky installment, but that project hasn't managed to get off the drawing board. Now, he's hoping that revisiting Rambo will help resurrect his once mighty career.

Rambo IV is slated to start lensing in Sofia, Bulgaria in January before moving on to locations in India and the U.S. A release is being targeted for either late 2006 or early 2007.
 
"Sadly, Richard Crenna, who costarred in the three previous installments as Rambo's longtime commander, Colonel Samuel Trautman, will be MIA from the new sequel, havingdied in 2003"

Smart move by Richard.
 
not2sharp, thats sad you feel that way, its a shame that crenna had to kick it. thats nearly as bad as johnny cash dying! if they would have gotten through the red tape sooner he would still be alive to do it again. this has been a rumor since 1997 i belive, but i havent heard a thing about it in years. feather stone you just made my day! thanks
 
Since I grew up with the Rambo movies, and they of course started my survival knife fetish, I'm looking forward to it :) Wonder who will make the knife.
 
I think it would be rather difficult to find a maker willing to desicrate their name in the name of Rambo. :rolleyes:

Who will make the knife? United Cutlery because its the cheapest. :barf:

Hopefully, it will be good though.
 
not2sharp, thats sad you feel that way, its a shame that crenna had to kick it.

Don't read that the wrong way. I had alot of respect for Crenna; He has been a key part of many excellent movies. He was excellent in epic The Sand Pebbles, and as the villan in BreakHeart Pass. I always thought that he was underutilized in the Rambo movies. I am just glad his name will never be associated with this turkey. A non-action Rambo movie exploiting native Americans and pretend over the top neo-nazis, sounds like a first rate piece of hollywood junk.

n2s
 
If it were possible to be an extra on the set, I'd be the first in line. I grew up with these movies and for what they are worth, they are great entertainment. I'd line up for a chance at that. Great to hear number 4 is on its way. What will it be called?

Kev
 
To me it seems a shame that the "villians" are neo-nazis. We are currently
fighting a war against fundamenatelist islamic terrorists. Every action film
needs a universally loathed villian and the early Rambo's had several good
ones (out of control authority types, the vietnamese meant to be the NVA
and the at the time despised Soviets) but this one instead of picking the
villians nobody likes they are picking the ones that nobody cares about.
Hopefully there will be re-write as I enjoyed the first Rambo series.
Otherwise this film will end up like the Clancy movie "Sum of All Fears"
were in the book it was islamicists that set off the nuclear weapon but in
the film it was neo-nazis. Anyone here seen it? I know I didn't even bother.
 
I guess it could be worse. The enemy could be a megalomaniac no one ever heard of who wants to depopulate the planet, has a giant secret base that is underground/in space/underwater, and an army of henchmen wearing colored jumsuits. :D



I recently saw several old James Bond movies. :D
 
I saw it. I didn't read the book so I thought it was OK. If I read the book I'd probably think differently.

Neo-Nazis are "good" villians since no one in this country (aside from the Neo-Nazis themselves ) actually likes them so at this time they are PC to use as bad guys. Even drug gangs are not all that PC to attack these days. The other option for a PC enemy is to make one up, such as Cobra or S.P.E.C.T.R.E., but totally made-up enemies are not that believable.
 
What I am trying to point to is "neo- nazis" are more than a bit obscure.
Sure nobody likes them but who has heard of them? Wereas islamacists are
seen on an almost nightly bases removing heads, setting off suicide car
bombs and making threats constantly against the US (I know a bit of a rant)
but they are a widely "known" villian. When was the last time a neo-nazi
tried to annhilate the US? A hole in the plot to me at least.
 
It is more politically correct this way. If Islamic terrorists are the bad guys Muslims and many PC types will be offended. Although there are probably not all that many serious Neo-Nazis, the government/media/educational establishment had the public convinced that militiamen, and gun owners in general, were Nazis, and some people may still believe this. Hollywierd, Stallone included, seems to like demonizing gun owners. I guess it is a risk since "militia movies" have not been all that successful, even with Stephen Segal, but maybe they figure that with Rambo it will be popular. IMO if there is a lot of action any Rambo movie will be successful, even if the only viewers were fans of the original series.
 
Borderline types would. I've known people who are anti-gun and socialist and still like action movies. Stallone himself is anti-gun and a socialist and he makes them.

I'm not saying I agree with Hollywood PC or that it makes for better movies, just that this is what they often do.
 
i think they should remake first blood, but fallow the book exactly. to tell the truth i find the movie and book completely different stories. but i like them both, in diffrent ways. they really can be compared to me.
 
elvenbladesmith07 said:
i think they should remake first blood, but fallow the book exactly. to tell the truth i find the movie and book completely different stories. but i like them both, in diffrent ways. they really can be compared to me.
Click to expand...

I agree, I LOVE the first movie, but I have always wondered how it would have been if they had stuck to the book, and had Rambo kill about 17 people like he did in the book. Before being killed by CO. Troutman.

Kirk Douglas who originally began filming as CO. Troutman, argued with Stallone and the others that they should kill Rambo at the end like the book, and became so contrary about it they fired him from the film. They put out calls to casting agents for a man that would fit into the uniforms made for Douglas, and R. Crenna's agent got him the part, he flew to location and was filming that afternoon.

What an amazing job he did to, for someone that just basically walked onset, got slpaped into a uniform and handed some lines!
 
I like the first movie. A close friend of the family, Tony Maffatone, was Stallone's bodyguard at the time and did some stunt and knife training work on a few of his movies. He has the numbered Liles from the first 2 movies. Handling them was what got me into custom knives.
I read the book recently and liked it a lot, it's a lot darker and makes a better point.
 
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