5. KIRK DOUGLAS WAS SUPPOSED TO PLAY COLONEL TRAUTMAN.
The veteran movie star actually made it to set and appeared in early advertisements for First Blood, but left the production when he demanded the right to rewrite the script. Douglas favored the ending of the book, and felt that Rambo should die in the end. The actor gave the filmmakers an ultimatum: if the production didn’t let him do what he wanted with the script he’d quit. Kotcheff and Stallone wanted to leave the door open for the possibility for Rambo to live or die at the end of the movie, so they let Douglas quit.
Actor Richard Crenna was then cast with a single day’s notice to fill Douglas’ shoes as Rambo’s mentor and father figure, Colonel Trautman. Crenna would reprise his role in two more Rambo movies before he passed away in 2003. He is the only actor besides Stallone to appear in multiple Rambo movies.
The unused alternate ending of First Blood, in which Trautman shoots and kills Rambo, can be seen briefly in the dream sequence in the fourth film, Rambo.
7. FOR RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, JAMES CAMERON WROTE THE ACTION AND STALLONE WROTE THE POLITICS.
Initial drafts of the screenplay for the sequel to First Blood were written by James Cameron, who at the time was still looking for his big break. Cameron’s script, which was titled First Blood II: The Mission and was written simultaneously with the scripts for The Terminator and Aliens (two movies which ultimately gave him that big break), differed substantially from what ended up on screen.
According to Cameron: “I was trying to create a semi-realistic, haunted character, the quintessential Vietnam returnee, not a political statement.” Cameron’s draft picked up with Colonel Trautman finding Rambo in a psychiatric ward (a concept Cameron would recycle for his Sarah Connor character in Terminator 2), and also featured a sidekick role named Lieutenant Brewer that producers hoped would be filled by John Travolta, who Stallone had recently directed in the 1983 Saturday Night Fever sequel, Staying Alive (yes, you read that correctly, Sly directed the sequel to Saturday Night Fever). Eventually Stallone took over scriptwriting duties, and excised the first half of Cameron’s screenplay to add the film’s prominent POW/MIA message and the love story beats with the character Co-Bao.
Rambo: First Blood Part II is the only Rambo movie to be nominated for an Oscar. It received a nod for Best Sound Effects Editing in 1986 but lost to Back to the Future.
10. TO BECOME RAMBO, STALLONE HAD A RIDICULOUS WORKOUT SCHEDULE.
First Blood required Stallone to be ripped (he shot Rocky III shortly before starring in the first Rambo movie, which helped), but for the second outing he really needed to pump some iron. The actor trained for eight months prior to the film’s start date in late 1984, but he maintained a strict regimen during shooting as well.
He would begin with a two- to three-hour morning workout, then he’d move on to the 10- to 12-hour shooting day on the movie. After that, instead of going home like the rest of the cast and crew, he’d cap off the day with another two- to three-hour workout. After six hours of sleep or so he’d be up and ready to do it all again. Maintaining that physique definitely helped Stallone for his next movie as well: he began shooting Rocky IV immediately after First Blood Part II.
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