'Rambo: Last Stand' Is Scripted; May Resemble 'Unforgiven' In Tone

Right after the release of Rambo, the fourth film to feature Sylvester Stallone's iconic Vietnam War veteran character, it seemed like a fifth film was a foregone conclusion. Last year, however, the writer/actor/director reversed his position, saying ""I think Rambo's pretty well done. I don't think there'll be any more." It seems like he was concerned about appearances more than the lack of a compelling story. "For Rambo to go on another adventure might be, I think, misinterpreted as a mercenary gesture and not necessary. I don't want that to happen...I'm very happy with the last Burmese episode, because I didn't pull any punches on it."

But now Sean Hood, the Conan the Barbarian screenwriter, says he's met with Stallone a couple times over the last year, and has completed a draft of a script called Rambo: Last Stand.

The story starts with an interview FEARnet did with Sean Hood, who offered up,

I recently finished a first draft of Rambo: Last Stand (Rambo 5) for Millennium films, based on a story idea by Sylvester Stallone. Hopefully, Mr. Stallone will eventually have the time and the inclination to do another Rambo.

Then Empire talked to the screenwriter, who gave them a few more details:

I met with Mr Stallone twice last year [...] He gave me a book, an older screenplay, and about twenty pages he'd written himself to use as inspiration for the last chapter of the Rambo saga.

We don' t know what the book was, but Empire does say that the current script isn't based on any of the ideas that have been reported in the past couple years. So it isn't a Mexican/South American actioner featuring a drug cartel, or the sci-fi-like Savage Hunt story.

But there's a little more info:

It's more in line with the small-town thriller of First Blood. [...] As of now, I don't know whether Mr Stallone will actually do it. Right now, as I understand it, he has his hands full with Bullet to the Head and Expendables 2. But Millennium films did hire me to complete the screenplay and realise his story, and my hope is that he'll eventually be inspired to do one more Rambo film, with the tone of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

I'm an unabashed fan of First Blood. (Seriously; it's a good film, full stop.) So if there's going to be a fifth film, I'd love to see the story come full circle back to a First Blood-type tale, especially if it could have the elegiac tone of Unforgiven. There's not much in the splatter-ific Rambo to suggest that movie would work, but if someone other than Stallone directs, I'd like to see where the project goes.