Sylvester Stallone's 50 years in the entertainment industry are being celebrated at the Cannes Film Festival today. In a few hours there will be a screening of a 4K restoration of the first Rambo film, FIRST BLOOD, and at that event Stallone will also be giving a preview of the upcoming sequel RAMBO: LAST BLOOD, the fifth and perhaps final entry in the franchise. While we wait to see if the LAST BLOOD material Stallone shares at Cannes is going to make its way online, Stallone has already talked a bit about the film during the press junket – and during that junket he also mentioned that he's working on a return to the world of his 1986 action-packed slasher COBRA.
First, here's what Stallone had to say about RAMBO: LAST BLOOD:
In every film, Rambo never goes home, he goes out the to the jungle or Afghanistan. In the new one, he does come home, but in a way he never arrives. He’s there, but he’s not. That’s what the whole story is built around. As soon as he walks outside his door, he has no more control. The world controls you. We pick it up, he’s out in this storm, a horrible storm. He’s trying to rescue people. There’s a flash flood. One guy goes up by horseback, he volunteers to save people. He’s still dealing with survivor guilt, because he couldn't save his friends in Vietnam. A result of PTSD. He has a hard time. He has a beautiful ranch, but he lives underground. This is how he deals with his dilemma. There’s something subterranean in Vietnam. He has an adopted family there. His father has passed on. The housekeeper who is 70 has a granddaughter. He’s her surrogate father."
The housekeeper's granddaughter ends up being abducted by a cartel while searching for her real father in Mexico, forcing Rambo to become a one-man army once again. As Stallone says,
Bad things happen. There’s going to be some serious vengeance in this movie. A lot of people getting hurt."
That's exactly what I want to see in a new Rambo movie.
Stallone has retired from Rambo in the past but changed his mind to return for LAST BLOOD. While making CREED II, he said he felt like that was his "last rodeo" as Rocky… but he revealed at this junket that he has an idea for another Rocky. And he also wants to make up for the fact that he never made a sequel to COBRA.
In COBRA, Stallone played Marion "Cobra" Cobretti, a member of the LAPD's "Zombie Squad". The movie didn't really explore the idea of this Zombie Squad, though, and for a long time I've been hoping for a sequel that would show Cobra working alongside his Zombie Squad cohorts. It sounds like that's basically what Stallone has in mind for a COBRA reboot. When asked about COBRA, Stallone replied:
That (conceit) was what if Bruce Springsteen had a gun? That was rock n’ roll meets drama. That should have been another franchise because that character was so cool. And I blew it. My personal life got in the way. But we’re trying to bring it back as a streaming TV series. Bring out the Zombie Squad. I’m long gone, but the idea is really good."
Hopefully that series will be happening, but in the meantime RAMBO: LAST BLOOD is scheduled to reach theatres on September 20th.
We'll keep you updated on any RAMBO or COBRA news that comes our way.