Start sharpening those Bowie knives and carving those arrows because John Rambo, the infamous Vietnam vet who went from being unable to find a job parking cars to working with the Taliban, is returning to theaters. John Rambo, the long-awaited prequel to the ur-’80s action series, opens next summer, Lionsgate announced earlier today.
Directed by Sisu‘s Jalmari Helander and starring Noah Centineo as Rambo, David Harbour as Col. Sam Troutman, and James Franco in an unspecified role, the film takes place before a drifter wandered into Portland, Oregon, looking for a bite to eat. Telling the origin story of the U.S. military’s last hope for peace, John Rambo takes place before 1982’s First Blood, and presumably tells of how Rambo became hungry enough to think he could pass through Brian Dennehy‘s town without trouble. Since that fateful day in the woods and across five movies, John Rambo has killed an astonishing 127 people on screen, according to the Kill Counts wiki, something we’re only just learning about. He’s not much of a killer in that first movie, so maybe this prequel won’t add to the count, though we wouldn’t count on it.
“When I was eleven, I saw First Blood for the first time, and it changed my life. Rambo wasn’t just a film to me—it stayed with me growing up and was a defining influence on why I wanted to become a filmmaker,” Helander said in a statement. “As we begin production on the origin of John Rambo, we’re going back to the beginning. This is Rambo stripped down, raw, and real—a survival story about endurance, persistence, and lost innocence. It’s an honor to shape this next chapter with deep respect for the character and the legacy, and to bring audiences the start of John Rambo’s journey.”
John Rambo opens on June 4, 2027.
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