Millennium Films has announced that it’s putting a new Rambo movie into production, without the assistance of series star Sylvester Stallone, who said he was finished with the franchise earlier this year. The studio has tapped Criminal director Ariel Vromen to helm Rambo: New Blood, a movie with a title that’s now so on the nose, it’s practically a nostril.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio hasn’t settled on a new actor to play John Rambo, the PTSD-afflicted war veteran first introduced in David Morrell’s novel First Blood and its 1982 film adaptation, and transformed by Stallone into a hulking murder monster in three subsequent bloody films. And while the 70-year-old action star has been reticent in the past to discuss passing his flamethrower on to any other Hollywood actor, he did express a preference for a new Rambo last year: Ryan Gosling. It’s not clear if Vromen will take Stallone’s advice, though, or if Gosling is safe from the actor’s muscle-bound desires.