Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. It's not news that Millennium has been pursuing a new Rambo movie, but it is news that they're branching off from the Stallone version of the character with their new title Rambo: New Blood, to be directed by Criminal's Ariel Vromen, per THR.
The idea isn't to straight up remake First Blood or its sequels, it doesn't seem, but to use the Rambo character as a springboard into a new "James Bond"ian franchise.
This is going to be a dangerous road for Millennium. This reeks of the Conan the Barbarian reboot/new franchise starter that fizzled. Stallone was two perfect John Rambos. The first was the inward PTSD suffering drifter vet, the second was the gleamingly muscular pro-America symbol to help us, as a nation, put Vietnam behind us by framing the rescue of POWs as a win for us. His 2008 turn of the character is more of a bookened with that original turn with the character (mixed with the over-the-top murder machine of the sequels).
The point is, even at the series' worst, Rambo stood for something more than just a simple action hero. Millennium, Vromen and screenwriter Brooks McLaren have the nearly impossible task in front of them to make their John Rambo have a deeper meaning as a character in this moment of our culture AND THEN casting the perfect actor to actually execute it.
This isn't something you can just plug The Rock in to and it works because, hey muscles and charm!
It's a tough road, but if they walk it right then they could have a big winner on their hands. What do you guys think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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