Rambo Becomes Latest Franchise to Jump On the Reboot Train

Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of which classic film franchises from decades gone by have been rebooted–everything from Ghostbusters to Point Break to Rocky. The latter of those was an overwhelmingly popular set of movies starring Sylvester Stallone–which weren’t rebooted, necessarily, but led to a fantastic sequel, Creed, wherein Rocky trains Apollo Creed’s son. Stallone himself reprised his role as Rocky opposite Michael B. Jordan; Creed was one of those instances where returning to a series is a good idea.

Now, another one of Stallone’s famous franchises has hopped on board on the reboot train, though this time around Stallone himself isn’t going to be involved.

The Rambo series first kicked off in 1982, when the character of John Rambo appeared in the film First Blood. Although the movie itself had a lot of action and big-time explosions, the most important part was the social commentary it offered regarding the treatment of war veterans–in this instance, Vietnam War veterans. It wasn’t until the sequel, Rambo: First Blood Part II, where Rambo returned to Vietnam, that the franchise kicked into high gear–and gave us that classic image of a sweaty, shirtless Rambo that most of us are probably more familiar with.

This time around, however, Stallone won’t be inhabiting the role of Rambo–the studio is looking for a younger actor to play the part for the new project, which will be titled Rambo: New Blood.

That begs the question: how will the Rambo franchise be updated for the new generation? If the film wanted to address the repercussions of social treatment of war vets, would the story still be told from the era of the Vietnam War–or would they bring the time period forward, perhaps to the Gulf War or the Iraq War? Nerdist has already put out a list of actors they could envision in the role; is there anyone you think could be the next John Rambo?

(via THR)

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