With a film career spanning over half a century with almost all of the movies going on to become classics in the future, there is little doubt in anyone’s mind about just how talented Sylvester Stallone really is. Known to be a part of classic blockbuster franchises like the Rocky, the star is known to push the limit of human boundaries and deliver more than expected to the audience.
Sylvester Stallone
With his reputation as one of the biggest action stars across generations of cine-goers, he has never taken a light-hearted approach to show the dangers of violence to people. But even Stallone admitted the fact that despite his efforts to show them the truth, he feared that cinemas would never let one of his film premiere on the big screen because it would be too graphic and violent for the audience.

Sylvester Stallone Feared Rambo Would Never Be Released In The Cinemas!

Sylvester Stallone in a still from Rambo (2008)
Despite the genre of action films being older than most people in the world today, film critics and fans of the genre wholeheartedly believe that the Rambo franchise was something else entirely. Written, directed, and enacted by Sylvester Stallone, the franchise follows the life of John J. Rambo, an ex-US military special ops and Vietnam War veteran who lives through the nightmare of wars. In the process of creating some of the most accurate depictions of the subject, Stallone made something so visceral that he feared people would never watch it.

During an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, the star was talking about his life and career, in retrospect to where the subject of war-time action films came up. Here, the Tulsa King star talked about the films which he based on wars. The first was Rocky IV, which was a Cold War proxy battle film that he did. The second was 2008’s Rambo, which focused on the civil war in Burma and how his character intervenes in the madness. Recollecting just how graphically disturbing and instinctive the film was, he said:
“One film I’m truly proud of — it’s the best action film I’ve ever done because it’s the most truthful — is Rambo IV, dealing with Burma, where they’ve had a civil war for 67 years. But I got excoriated because the movie’s so violent. And it is violent. It’s horrifying. It’s children being burnt alive. That’s what makes civil war worse than anything: It’s your neighbor, all of a sudden, killing you. I was really happy with that film, and I never thought it would ever reach the theater. I thought, ‘They’re never going to show this.’”
Despite his initial doubts about the film, the movie did exceptionally well with a box-office collection of $113 Million and gained critical appraisal from the audience members.

What Made Rambo So Visceral?

Sylvester Stallone as John J. Rambo in a still from Rambo (2008)
While the prequels of the Rambo franchise dealt with the aftermath as well as the events of different wars, what made 2008’s Rambo so gut-wrenching is the sheer unadulterated depravity of humanity during a civil war shown to the audience with vivid clarity. From mutilations to beheadings and destruction of the human body in unimaginable and unspeakable ways, it made the film one of the closest projects to showing the audience what real wars are.

Rambo, streaming on Peacock TV.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter