Shortly after the release of 2008's RAMBO, Sylvester Stallone moved towards developing a fifth installment of the franchise, and for a moment, it would have taken the series in quite a different direction. Stallone snagged the rights to "Hunter" by James Bryon Huggins in 2009, a novel which found the world's greatest tracker hunting down a genetically engineered monster. Stallone had intended on transforming the novel into a RAMBO sequel, which would have given the franchise a dose of science-fiction. Obviously this didn't happen as Sylvester Stallone is currently in the midst of production on a more down-to-earth RAMBO sequel, but it seems that the actor still wants to bring HUNTER to life.
Deadline has reported that Sylvester Stallone's Balboa Productions are developing several projects for Stallone to star in, including HUNTER. The film will find the actor playing Nathaniel Hunter, "whose hyper-tracking skills are employed to hunt down a raging beast, a half-human terror created by a renegade agency that is threatening to wreak havoc on civilization." Balboa Productions is currently looking to for a writer to pen the script. The other projects include SAMARITAN, which is described as a "dark, fresh take on the superhero genre," as well as a film based on "Ghost: My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent," a memoir by FBI vetern Michael McGowan and Ralph Pezzullo.
Back when HUNTER was being set up as a RAMBO sequel, this was the synopsis which was released:
John Rambo could track anyone – or anything – on earth. Now the military desperately needs him for a mission that his ultrasensitive instincts tell him he should refuse. A beast is loose somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. It has already decimated a secret research facility and annihilated a squad of elite military guards. And the raging creature is headed south towards civilization, ready to wreak bloody devastation.
It's a job that Rambo and his 22-year-old hunting partner, Beau Brady, can't turn down, but they and a team of highly skilled special forces kill team discover that the prey is beyond their wildest fears, a half-human abomination created by a renegade agency through a series of outlawed genetic experiments. It has man's cunning, a predator's savageness, and a prehistoric power that has transcended the ages. And even if Rambo and Beau survive its unrelenting hunger for human blood, they'll still have to confront the grim reality that it may have grown immortal.
Sylvester Stallone will next be seen in CREED II on November 21, 2018.