Even Stallone Hated This Rambo Movie

You'd think First Blood was always destined to be an action classic — a bullet-riddled staple of the 1980s that cemented Sylvester Stallone as a Hollywood icon. But if Stallone had gotten his way back in the early days, he would've bought the movie back and set it on fire.

Seriously. His words:

"That movie was a complete failure. That movie was so bad I wanted to buy it back and burn it; that's not a joke. I put that in Variety; it was that bad. Because it was just overblown, over-long, and I had never seen an actor attacking his own country — it was just very odd. That's why 11 people passed on the film."

The version that freaked him out? A nearly three-hour cut of First Blood that Stallone was convinced would kill his career. It was long, meandering, and made Rambo look less like a haunted veteran and more like a maniac on a warpath. Stallone thought it was career suicide.

Thankfully, that version never made it to theaters. The final cut clocked in at 85 minutes, and most of the fat was trimmed — particularly action scenes that risked making Rambo completely unsympathetic. What survived was tight, tense, and weirdly human for a movie that includes a guy taking out an entire police department with guerrilla tactics and a big knife.

First Blood went on to become one of the most iconic action films of the decade, but it didn't look like a sure thing at the time. The market was full of lighter adventure heroes like Indiana Jones, and here comes Stallone — sweaty, silent, and mowing through small-town America with a machine gun. Every 13-year-old boy was thrilled. Every parent was horrified.

The irony? Stallone is now one of the most respected figures in action cinema — Rocky, The Expendables, Creed, you name it. But this was the one that nearly didn't make it.