Although that sustained ardor made a third entry all but inevitable, it’s axiomatic that what goes up inevitably comes down, and this was true even when something burned as white-hot as Rambo did at his peak.Īs such, by the time the next sequel arrived three years later, both the cultural and political zeitgeist had moved on. It was frankly a paradoxical place for the character to have ended up given his starkly anti-establishment origins as a pointed critique of American foreign interventionism, both on the page and onscreen. Cosmatos’ Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985 (at the box office, if not critically) opened the door to action figures, lunch boxes, a weekday animated show, and - perhaps the most important metric of all for a film’s success in the 1980s - regular mentions from the nation’s highest-ranking movie buff, President Ronald Reagan. Nevertheless, the success of director George P. Certainly author David Morrell had no illusions about the character's longevity when he penned the novel First Blood - and closed it out with a very definitive death for its lead character.Īnd even though that rough ending was softened substantially by screenwriter/star Sylvester Stallone for the feature adaptation ten years later, it seems highly doubtful he or the producers could have imagined the pop culture dominance they’d achieve by turning Rambo from a tormented one-off into bona fide action hero. Rambo was always something of an accidental franchise. As you may have heard, Alamo Drafthouse is doing an amazing Rambo marathon leading up to the release of 2019's greatest achievement, Rambo: Last Blood.