Rambo 5 Was Almost a Monster Movie – Here’s the Insane Premise Sylvester Stallone Scrapped

Rambo: Last Blood is the worst-reviewed film in the franchise. It also received backlash from the creator of the character, David Morrell, who called it “a mess.” Yet Rambo 5 was almost an entirely different movie – one that would have had much more in common with Predator had it stuck to its original – and awesome – premise.

After the success of 2008’s Rambo, Sylvester Stallone and Co. started work on Rambo 5. Details flowed in dribs and drabs, as the rumor mill went into overdrive about what the movie would be about. At one point, all the noise was that it was set to cross over with Universal Soldier. However, Stallone cleared up that misconception in a voicemail to Ain’t It Cool News.

The synopsis for what would have been titled Rambo V: The Savage Hunt eventually became public. It read:

“John Rambo could track anyone – or anything – on earth. Now the military desperately needs him for a mission that his ultrasensitive instincts tell him he should refuse. A beast is loose somewhere north of the Arctic Circle. It has already decimated a secret research facility and annihilated a squad of elite military guards. And the raging creature is headed south towards civilization, ready to wreak bloody devastation.”

Rambo and his young protégé Beau Brady would team up with a special forces team to take down this “half-human abomination.” Hmm… Sounds an awful lot like Rambo vs. Predator, doesn’t it?

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As it turns out, Rambo V: The Savage Hunt was partially inspired by the novel Hunter, written by James Byron Huggins. The book features a Rambo-esque character named Nathaniel Hunter who encounters a strange creature that is quite unlike anything else he’s ever encountered. Hunter must uncover what this beast is, why it exists, and the conspiracy behind it.

Stallone had acquired the rights for Hunter and wanted to use it as the basic premise for Rambo V. It was a cool and novel idea that would have set the franchise on a new and exciting course, but then news broke that everybody involved had decided on a different direction for John Rambo. In the end, what we received was 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood.

So, whatever happened to the rights to Hunter? Well, in 2018, Deadline reported that Stallone still held them and planned to do an adaptation of Hunter through his Balboa Productions company. In addition to this, Stallone would star as Nathaniel Hunter.

Since then, the status of the project is unknown. To be fair, a pandemic swept up the world two years later and likely affected any plans that may have been in motion at the time. Having said that, this seems like a project that’s right in Stallone’s wheelhouse and deserves to materialize.

For Rambo fans, though, this remains one of the biggest missed opportunities in the franchise. Who wouldn’t want to see the one-man army face off against a half-human, half-beast creature in an all-out battle? Sometimes, it really does feel like Hollywood hates making money.

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Rambo: Last Blood is currently streaming on Netflix, Peacock, and Tubi (free with ads), or available to rent/buy on Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.