Rambo Prequel Director Teases a Bold New Take on the Iconic Action Hero

Yes, you read that right: a Rambo prequel is happening, and the hook is basically 'Rambo before the trauma.' The wildest part? Young John Rambo is... happy. I know. That feels strange just to type.

The setup

Earlier this year, Noah Centineo signed on to play John Rambo in a prequel feature directed by Jalmari Helander, the filmmaker behind Sisu. The script comes from Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. Helander told GamesRadar that this one starts way before the broken drifter we meet in First Blood.

'We are going to start in a place where everything is basically pretty okay for Rambo. He is happy and younger and all that, because we are telling the origin story. What would happen to him? Why did he become that kind of dude that we have all seen in First Blood?'

A lighter Rambo (on purpose)

Helander has also said the prequel will not be as grim as the last two Rambo films. Instead, he is aiming for something a little more adventurous, the kind of movie that might actually make kids want to run around pretending to be Rambo again. A young, upbeat John Rambo is going to feel weird at first, but that is the point: show who he was before everything hardened him.

Big boots to fill

First Blood hit in 1982 and introduced Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in a darker, moodier, surprisingly tender film that is very different from the bullet-sprayed sequels that followed. Stallone then kept the role all the way through to Rambo: Last Blood. No one else has ever played him on screen, which makes Centineo taking over a big swing at an icon. History is not kind here either — new takes on 80s action legends tend to faceplant unless they have a very sharp angle.

• First Blood (1982)
• Rambo: First Blood Part II
• Rambo III
• Rambo (2008)
• Rambo: Last Blood

Why Helander might be the right kind of wildcard

If you saw Sisu, you know Helander can stage inventive mayhem with a straight face. That movie followed a gold prospector mowing through Nazis, and it picked up a die-hard following. His sequel, Sisu: Road to Revenge, jumps ahead a couple of years and pits the same unkillable lead against the Red Army. Early reactions from genre folks have been strong — think a rowdy crowd-pleaser with grimy humor, bone-crunching action, and a surprisingly sincere streak — and it lands in theaters on November 21. If Helander brings even a fraction of that energy and craft to a Rambo origin story, we might actually have something here.

Bottom line: Centineo as a pre-trauma, optimistic Rambo is a gamble, but Helander is not trying to redo the Stallone movies. He is making the chapter that explains how a good kid turned into the guy who walked into Hope, Washington and never stopped fighting. If they stick that landing, the prequel has a shot at standing on its own instead of living in Sly's shadow.