1. Stallone Fired The Director Of “Rambo III” While The Movie Was In Production.
A few weeks into filming Rambo III, the most reviled film of the series, Stallone fired and replaced a shocking number of people. Specifically, he fired the director, director of photography, and basically the entire camera crew.Stallone later told the LA Times it had to do with people not thinking ahead: The canvas of this movie is so large you have to constantly think 10 scenes ahead. You can’t wing it. They didn’t go into the Battle of Waterloo not knowing what their strategy would be. Well, this movie is kind of like a cinematic warfare. We have a huge cast and crew (more than 250 people) and tough locations to deal with. Everyone and everything has to coordinate.
Yes, Stallone compared the making of Rambo III to Waterloo. The same article in which Stallone spoke his piece also includes the following: “According to sources on the set, the problems stemmed from some key crew members’ varying interpretations of what the next Rambo movie should look like, to personality conflicts among crew members, the producers and/or Stallone.”
2. A Catchphrase From “Rambo” Inspired Burmese Freedom Fighters
The fourth Rambo film, which goes by the somewhat enigmatic title Rambo, is set in Burma/Myanmar and features John Rambo rescuing Christian missionaries and Burmese hostages from the State Peace and Development Council army (the harsh apparatus of the military junta). Rambo took a lot of details from what was really going on in Burma at the time, so it shouldn’t surprise you the government banned the movie. However, bootleg copies made their way into the country, and into the hands of the Burmese Freedom Fighters, who took up the line “live for nothing or die for something” as a mantra. Members of the group collect bootleg copies of Rambo and distribute them to their friends and family. A Rangoon-based activist told The Telegraph: “I like the movie very much because Rambo fought against Myanmar soldiers. I watched the movie at home with my family, and gave it to my friends because I wanted them to see it.”
3. Shot Were Fired On The Crew Of “Rambo”, And Stallone Called The Location A ” hellhole Beyond Your Wildest Dreams”
While filming Rambo in the Salween River region between Thailand and Myanmar, the crew was almost mowed down by automatic gunfire. Stallone told USA Today:We had shots fired above our heads. We were told we could get seriously hurt if we went on… We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia but the results of this conflict are more horrific. This is a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams.
4. “Rambo: First Blood Part II” Producers Wanted To Cast John Travolta As A Techy Sidekick
For Rambo: First Blood Part II, producers thought the beloved protagonist should have a tech-oriented partner to help rescue POWs in Vietnam. Who did they think had the chutzpah play Stallone’s partner? None other than John Travolta. Stallone ultimately nixed the idea and had Rambo team up with a young local woman who (spoiler alert) sadly didn’t last, and ended up perishing at the hands of her own people.RELATED:
Sylvester Stallone Says ‘First Blood’ Producers Wanted to Cut Rambo’s Iconic Speech
5. Stallone Claims “Rambo III” Turned Him Red, Literally
At a live Q&A in London, Stallone claimed the reason he’s so red is extreme sunburn suffered while filming in Afghanistan: “III was an incredibly [harsh] movie. We were in the desert, and that’s why I’m so red these days – I got so burned I ain’t never coming back.” Is that how skin works? If you say so, Stallone.
6. There Was A “Rambo” Animated Series
Apparently, the first two Rambo movies – the very movies about the Vietnam vet who tragically suffers such intense PTSD that the only thing he can do is cause harm – were so hot, producers decided they needed to figure out how to sell toys of the character. The accepted best way to do this at the time? Make an animated series of it. The series, Rambo: The Force of Freedom, debuted and ended in 1986 after producing 65 episodes. Here’s a fun excerpt about the project from a Reagan-era piece in The New York Times:
‘When you think that the President has mentioned him, the symbol of Rambo transcends the film,’ said Amy Kastens, a spokesman for Anabasis Investments NV, producers of the television series. ‘That symbol is a symbol of good. He’s very patriotic. He stands for strength, he only does good, and he undoes evil.’ She added that the lead character of the children’s shows will not be a Sylvester Stallone look-alike. ‘It’ll be a total departure from the film,’ she said of the television show. ‘There won’t be any [aggression]. He will have giant muscles and all of that. But he will be a guy who loves nature and won’t look for trouble.’
7. The Car Scene At The Beginning Of ” First Blood” Is Real And It Compressed A Stuntman’s Spine
The car chase in First Blood is a very cool, simple scene, but, according to Stallone, the sequence was “horrifically unchoreographed.” During the chase, Sheriff Teasle’s (Brian Dennehey) squad car slips down a hill sideways and flips over. This was unintentional, and was kept in the film because it looked so cool. After the stunt driver collided, Teasle was put into the overturned vehicle, and the scene continued. Yet, while an overturned car looks great on camera, stuntman Bennie E. Dobbins suffered a compression lumbar fracture: he broke his back and shortened his spine.
8. James Cameron Wrote A Draft Of “Rambo II”
Legendary director James Cameron, who has made some of the highest-grossing films ever, actually wrote a draft of Rambo II. But Sylvester Stallone had serious issues with it. There’s even some discrepancy on whether or not Cameron had anything to do with what made it to the screen (as he does on most of his movies, Stallone did a major rewrite on the script). In a fan Q&A Stallone laid out the things he added to Cameron’s script:I think that James Cameron is a brilliant talent, but I thought the politics were important, such as a right-wing stance coming from Trautman and his nemesis, Murdock, contrasted by Rambo’s obvious neutrality, which I believe is explained in Rambo’s final speech. I realize his speech at the end may have caused millions of viewers to burst veins in their eyeballs by rolling them excessively, but the sentiment stated was conveyed to me by many veterans.
9. The Director Of ” First Blood” Turned Down “Rambo II” And Is Not A Fan Of The Film
Ted Kotcheff, who directed First Blood, was offered the chance to direct the second film in the series, Rambo: First Blood Part II, but declined after reading the script. In a 2016 interview with Filmmaker Magazine, Kotcheff elaborated on his decision and, in the process, threw out some burns:I didn’t want to do the sequels. They offered me the first sequel and after I read the script I said, ‘In the first film he doesn’t [eliminate] anybody. In this film he [wipes out] seventy-four people.’ It seemed to be celebrating the Vietnam War, which I thought was one of the stupidest wars in history. 55,000 young Americans [perished] and so many veterans committed suicide. I couldn’t turn myself inside out like that and make that kind of picture. Of course, I could have been a rich man today – that sequel made $300 million.
10. “First Blood” Was Supposed To End With Rambo’s Suicide, But Stallone Convinced The Director To Shoot An Alternate Conclusion
It turns out First Blood didn’t always have the ending everyone knows, where Rambo is taken to jail for destroying an entire town and taunting the military. Director Ted Kotcheff explains that the original ending was something even darker:In the original ending, Rambo says to his colonel ‘You made me. Now you should [end] me.’ The colonel has his [piece] out and thinks about putting Rambo out of his misery, but he can’t do it. Rambo reaches up and blows himself away, commits hari-kari. Well, we [filmed] the scene and Sylvester gave a spectacular performance. Everyone was thrilled with it – except Sylvester. He took me aside and said, ‘Ted, we’ve put Rambo through so much…the audience has suffered with him through all of this, and now we’re going to [take him out]? They are going to hate this, I’m telling you.’Kotcheff filmed the alternate and, after test audiences absolutely hated seeing the hero take himself out, the alternate ending became the actual ending.
11. Stallone Almost Had A Head-On Collision With An 18- Wheeler While Riding A Motorcycle Without A Helmet In “First Blood”
In First Blood, Rambo escapes custody on a Yamaha XT250 and a very minimalist chase breaks out. It’s cool, but it almost ended in tragedy, when the driver on an 18-wheeler decided to drive down a road that had been blocked off for filming. Stallone said, “Just before I came off the road, we almost had a head-on collision. The stunt people tried to block off the highways, but they couldn’t, and this one truck came by… let me tell you, it was very, very close. I was ready to shake hands with the angels.”RELATED:
All Rambo Movies Ranked by Rotten Tomatoes
12. “Rambo III” Was The Most Violent Film Ever Made As Of 1990
According to the fine folks over at AMC, Rambo III holds the 1990 Guinness World Record as the most violent film ever made, with 210 passings. When you put it into perspective against First Blood, which only had one demise, that does seem like a lot. Of course, these counts aren’t perhaps the best metric for “most violent” in films. Surely a movie like Hostel, despite a relatively low body count, is harsher than, say, Star Trek (2008), in which an entire planet is wiped out.
13. Stallone And Brian Dennehy Both Broke Ribs Doing Dangerous Stunts In “First Blood”
From the sound of things, if you were on the set of First Blood, you couldn’t leave until you broke at least one rib. Stallone broke a rib on the second take of the scene in which he falls through some trees after jumping off a mammoth cliff, and Brian Dennehy shattered his ribs when he fell through the roof of a police station. Haven’t these guys heard of stunt doubles?
14. Lionsgate Kept Changing The Title Of “Rambo”
While in production, 2008’s Rambo was called John Rambo. That title was changed because Stallone felt it was too similar to the then just-released Rocky Balboa. So Lionsgate changed it to Rambo: And Back, which threw Stallone into the fit of all fits. Sly told Harry Knowles from Aint It Cool News:I just was thinking that the title John Rambo was derivative of Rocky Balboa and might give people the idea that this is the last Rambo film, and I don’t necessarily feel that it will be. He’s definitely a superb athlete, there’s no reason he can’t continue onto another adventure. Like John Wayne with The Searchers.
