Noah Centineo Will Star in the Prequel to the Surprisingly Thoughtful 'Rambo'

I was late to the character of Rambo. Most of my life was spent being exposed to the idea of him, and, for a long time, I assumed he was all machine guns, oiled pecks, and jingoistic racism. Taking in Rambo purely through cultural osmosis, I saw a pumped-up military man who kills brown people. That was only made worse by the most recent film in the franchise, which basically led with “Mexico bad,” and you can tell that just from the trailers. Still, the conversations around that movie and its messages made me aware that First Blood, the first Stallone Rambo film, was not like this at all.

It took me until last year, but I finally watched First Blood, and holy cow! What a movie! Stallone is incredible in it, and he plays a lonesome, vulnerable John Rambo who, years after fighting in the Vietnam War, travels to a small town after learning a friend of his died from war-related cancer. He runs afoul of a sheriff and his men and ends up fighting for his life. But, while it is an action movie, the adaptation of the novel of the same name has a lot to say about war and how soldiers are treated, especially those who fought in Vietnam. Hell, it ends with Stallone breaking down, crying, and recounting the horrors he witnessed. Now we … get to see those horrors.

Deadline is reporting that a Rambo prequel is on the way from the folks at Millennium Media. Jalmari Helander, who directed Sisu, will direct a screenplay from Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. There are no details yet, but it does look like it will take place during the Vietnam War (I don’t know how it couldn’t), and, presumably, will see some of the awful things John Rambo describes happen in real time. Yay? I’m sure there is a nuanced way this could happen, more in line with the original film, but that is far from a guarantee.

Whatever tone the movie ends up striking, it’s found the man who will wear Stallone’s headband and bandolier. Noah Centineo is attached to star in the new film. Centineo stars in the Netflix show The Recruit, and attempted to help change the balance of power in the DC Universe via the Dwayne Johnson vehicle, Black Adam. Deadline also reports that the film is set to shoot in Thailand in 2026 and that Lionsgate are frontrunners to land the film, since they put out the last two.

I’m morbidly curious about what this movie could end up being. Most of the thoughtfulness in First Blood comes from him already having experienced trauma. Even then, the horrors of war had already been plenty documented on film, and they certainly haven’t stopped in the decades since. So, will this movie just be death and mayhem and torture until Rambo is sent back to America? Will it jump forward toward the end, try to have their cake and eat it too by showing a remorseful, devastated Rambo by the end of the film? Time will tell, because it may take me as long to see this one as it did First Blood.