Sylvester Stallone Retires From Playing RAMBO
Action star and actor Sylvester Stallone is not mincing words after this week. The 69 year old action hero is officially retiring from the role of Rambo according to a new interview with Variety
“The heart’s willing, but the body says, ‘Stay home!,’” says Stallone. “It’s like fighters that go back for one last round and get clobbered. Leave it to someone else.”
The character, based David Morell’s 1972 novel, “First Blood”, spawned four films with Stallone in the title role between 1982 and 2008, with the latter, Rambo, reinvigorating an already decades-hardened fanbase of R-rated action cinema. “You know when you realize there’s nothing more to pull out?” said the actor. “As an action film, I was very satisfied that it 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.”
Stallone, who has been busy as of late with The Expendables franchise among a number of titles, was also up to star in a fifth potential film which took on a few forms in its development, with one such iteration now shaping up as a television series for Fox as Rambo: New Blood. Updates were still pretty uncertain, apparently right up until last month as reports began surfacing regarding Stallone’s detachment from the series. “I don’t want to cast aspersions,” he said, “but 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.”
So, as it stands, Stallone has no involvement with the series, and as of today, the character entirely, which essentially means no more Stallone as Rambo. Thus, the question remains aside from a small chuckle over casting Ryan Gosling as a potential replacement, who could play Rambo should another movie come to pass?
We await that answer while we lean closer to seeing if Fox can achieve what the former patriarch of the Rambo saga says is virtually impossible. Stay tuned!
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