Rambo no more; Sylvester Stallone plans to retire iconic role

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

While it seems like the ROCKY franchise will continue onwards, the same unfortunately can't be said for Sylvester Stallone's other iconic role, that of John Rambo. Stallone kicked off the RAMBO franchise with FIRST BLOOD in 1982, which was followed by RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II in '85, RAMBO III in '88 and finally, RAMBO in '06. Ever since the last film was released there has been talk of another sequel, titled RAMBO: LAST BLOOD, but in a recent interview with Variety, Stallone has seemingly put a nail in Rambo's coffin by announcing that he plans to retire the character.

The heart’s willing, but the body says, "Stay home!" It’s like fighters that go back for one last round and get clobbered. Leave it to someone else.

Considering that Stallone's late entries in the ROCKY franchise (ROCKY BALBOA and CREED) proved to be quite excellent, I was looking forward to see whether he had it in him to give us another great modern-day RAMBO flick. However, if RAMBO really is the final time we see John Rambo single-handedly take on hundreds of enemies, I'd be fine with that, as is Stallone.

There’s nothing left. When they asked me to do another Rambo, I said, "If I can’t do better than I did last time, and I can’t, then why?” As an action film, I was very satisfied that it [RAMBO] dealt with the Burmese situation. It had one foot in a current event, the longest civil war in history, 65 years at that time. It was so brutal, which civil war is, I was shocked they even gave me an R-rating. I didn’t want to compromise. I said, "This is probably going to be the last decent film of this genre that I’m going to do as a solo act." When that was accomplished, I never felt the same willingness to do it again.

And what about that Rambo TV series that Fox is developing? Sylvester Stallone has already said he wasn't going to be involved and he senses that the series has a difficult time ahead of it as "it’s delicate to try to replace a character with his son. I’ve seen the son of Flicka, the son of Tarzan, the son of King Kong, the son of Godzilla. It’s a very difficult premise.” Even though Stallone is now done with the role, that doesn't mean that we won't see John Rambo make a return sometime in the future, after all, Hollywood loves a reboot.

Are you happy with RAMBO being the conclusion to Sylvester Stallone's Rambo saga, or were you hoping for just one more?