Ben Sherlock, at ScreenRant, posted They Drew First Blood: 10 Behind-The-Scenes Facts About The Rambo Movies. Before you click over, here are three of my favorite facts and my comments on each…
The Fifth Movie Had A Ton Of Unused Scripts.
…A script called Rambo 5: Savage Hunt was a horror movie in which Rambo led a Special Forces team into the Arctic Circle to track down a flesh-eating mutant creature.…Another script called Rambo 5: Last Stand pitted Rambo against a band of meth dealers who were terrorizing a small town. There were also a few drafts about Rambo saving a kidnapped girl from a Mexican cartel before the final script was written.
(The Rambo 5: Savage Hunt script was based on James Byron Huggins’ Hunter novel. While this would have made an interesting Rambo movie, it might have been too much of a genre change. I hope that someday Sly will turn Hunter into the film it deserves. Rambo 5: Last Stand sounds a lot like Arnold’s Last Stand movie. – Craig)
Dolph Lundgren Was Initially Cast As The Villain In First Blood Part II. The role of Russian Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Podovsky, the only villain in Rambo: First Blood Part II with any lines in English, was originally offered to Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren even accepted the part and signed a contract.
(I did not know this. – Craig)
…Burmese Freedom Fighters even adopted some dialogue from the movie to use as battle cries. In particular, they were known to say, “Live for nothing, or die for something.” When he heard about this, Sylvester Stallone said, “That, to me, is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in film.”
(And we thought people only quoted Rocky for inspiration! – Craig)