After years of uncertainty, the long-discussed Rambo prequel is finally moving forward and headed toward the movie release calendar. Noah Centineo is set to play a young John Rambo, but Sylvester Stallone once had a very different vision for who would wear the red headband and dog tags. Some fans may even be surprised to learn that Stallone's idea involved a major Hollywood A-lister.
Stallone, who originated the role in the iconic 80s film First Blood, has been open about stepping away from Rambo, much like he has with Rocky Balboa. In a resurfaced clip from The Tonight Show, recently shared by OutstandingScreenplays on YouTube, the action icon revealed that Centineo wasn’t his original pick to take over the character. That distinction, somewhat unexpectedly, went to Ryan Gosling. Explaining his reasoning to the late-night host, Stallone said:
Yeah. And isn’t that bizarre? I’ll tell you why. I met him at a dinner and obviously we’re opposites. He’s good looking, I’m not. That’s how it works. No, seriously. See, imagine me as Ken. Like, doesn’t work at all. But he goes, I was fascinated by Rambo when I was a kid. I saw Rambo: First Blood, and I used to go to school dressed as Rambo and people would chase me away and I still didn’t stop. I thought I was Rambo. I even thought my face felt like Sylvester Stallone’s. He just had a real connection to the character.
It’s a pretty funny image, Gosling, of all people, running around as a pint-sized Vietnam vet. The Tulsa King star went on to explain why that passion stuck with him, adding:
He kept saying how much he identified with Rambo, and I thought, that’s interesting. If I ever passed the baton, I’d pass it to him, because he really loves the character.
That baton, however, won’t be going to Gosling, seeing that the role is set to be taken on by Noah Centineo. The Expendables veteran previously admitted he didn’t know much about Centineo personally, but he’s been open to the idea of the forthcoming Rambo prequel and what it could explore if handled the right way. As he put it, it would be “quite a challenge,” but one that could be “fantastic” if the filmmakers “hit all the marks.”
That’s no small task. The Rambo franchise has been a fixture of pop culture for nearly 50 years, and the character has only ever been played by one actor: Sylvester Stallone. But, with the man who originated the character officially stepping away and the film finally moving forward, that long-standing status quo is about to change.
With Centineo’s Rambo now officially a "go," there’s a real opportunity to explore what it actually means to become that hardened war veteran we met in First Blood. Stallone may not be directly involved, but his comments offer cautious optimism. If the prequel works, it won’t be because it replaces what the Tango & Cash star did in the original, but because it understands why Rambo mattered in the first place, long before a young Ryan Gosling ever decided to dress up as him and chase that feeling.
And, if this has you itching to revisit the action movie franchise, you’re in luck. The Rambo films are currently free to stream on Pluto TV and are among the best movies available, making it easy to jump back into the action.
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