Since Sylvester Stallone brought “Rambo” back to the big screen a decade ago, there have been whispers of a fifth Rambo film floating around in development hell. Now, in a new Instagram post, the 72-year-old Stallone is signaling that he’s ready to gear up for another round as the brutal Vietnam vet.
In a tweet posted on Saturday, Stallone showed a picture of Rambo, his back facing the camera as he stands in the pouring rain. The caption: “A SAVAGE RISING! … soon.”
That caption is a possible reference to the long-standing rumored title for the film: “Rambo V: The Savage Hunt.” Back in 2009, a fifth “Rambo” film was initially announced by Millennium Films after the fourth “Rambo” grossed $113 million worldwide against a $50 million budget. But the project was dropped a year later, with Stallone saying in an interview with Empire magazine that he was retiring the character.
In the years since, Stallone has starred in the action series “The Expendables” while returning to play his most famous role, Rocky Balboa, in Ryan Coogler’s “Creed.” His seventh performance as the boxer earned him a Golden Globe and a nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars, and he will return to the role again in “Creed II” later this year.
But all the while, rumors have swirled around “Rambo V,” with reports of attempts to put the film in production repeatedly failing. The most recent development attempt was announced at the Cannes Film Festival this past May, with the rumored plot moving Rambo out of Southeast Asia and into the drug cartel-filled U.S.-Mexico border, a location that has been the setting for films like “Sicario” and its recent sequel, “Day of the Soldado.”
Representatives for Stallone did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s requests for comment.