First of all, it is worth recalling that in the first edition of David Morell’s book about the adventures of the brave “Green Beret,” John Rambo did not live to see the finale and went to heaven with the help of Colonel Trautman. The original version of the film had the same ending. But the audience focus group was so outraged by this ending that the studio decided to reshoot the ending, leave the main character alive and send him to places not so distant. It is for this reason that the second part of the film became possible…
Writer David Morell was one of the screenwriters of the film, and it is to him (along with Stallone) that we owe the “cranberry”, which first appeared in this film cycle precisely from the second film, filmed in 1985. The second screenwriter for the project was none other than the famous James Cameron. And the third is Sylvester Stallone himself.The film was shot in two countries – the USA and Mexico. The director of the project is George P. Cosmatos. But as in many other projects, Stallone decided that he, too, was a director and, taking advantage of his star status, began to call the shots.
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It was because of his whim that guys like Dolph Lundgren and John Travolta did not star in the project. Sly decided that there should be one and only star in the film – himself!Preparing for the role of John Rambo took Stallone a whole eight months – training with weapons, and of course the “rocking chair”…An interesting fact is that the second part was the only Rambo episode to be nominated for an Oscar. The prize could be won for “Best Sound Editing”.
Dolph Lundgren could have played the Soviet colonel, but Stallone chose to see him in his other famous film – “Rocky 4” of the same 1985.Initially, the film was supposed to be called “First Blood 2”, but it was Stallone who demanded that the name of the main character be present in the title of the film.The role of the Vietnamese military in the film was played by workers of Chinese restaurants in Mexico. These are such cunning directorial moves for this film! 😉A big fan of “Rambo 2” was the then US President Ronald Reagan, who even had lunch with Stallone. The former and current actor had a meal together – yes, yes ;).
Both Stallone and his character John vRambo were born on the same day – July 6th. Sylvester in 1946, and John in 1947.The role of the Vietnamese messenger was the first work on the big screen for Singaporean actress Julia Nixon. Before that, she only played in television series.The first frag in the film was scored at the thirty-fourth minute of the film’s footage. For an action movie, this is quite a long “pause” before the action scenes.
There are a total of “eighty-four frags” in the film, of which John Rambo “took” most of them – seventy-four.The song Peace In Our Life for the final credits of the film was performed by Sylvester’s brother Frank Stallone. Well, the film’s composer was the famous Jerry Goldsmith.With a budget of $44,000,000, Rambo 2 grossed over $300,000,000 worldwide, plus VHS sales, making a third film possible, which we’ll talk about another time…