The Cancelled Rambo Sequel That Went Full Sci-Fi

When director Ted Kotcheff introduced moviegoers to the character of John Rambo in the 1982 action classic "First Blood," Rambo was recognizably human, a tragic figure who was trained to be an elite killing machine in a pointless war that could not be won in a conventional manner. Home from Vietnam for less than a decade, he's found it difficult to reintegrate himself into a society that wants to forget everything for which he risked his life. This is fine by Rambo. He just wants to reconnect with old war buddies and find a safe harbor where he can hopefully get his bearings back. He's not looking for a fight. That part of his life is over — until a sadistic, power-tripping small-town sheriff decides to mess with Rambo because he can.

Though Rambo is portrayed as an exceptionally lethal man who can outwit a law enforcement hunting party while surviving a series of perilous spills, we never lose sight of the soft-spoken guy who was devastated to learn at the outset of the film that a fellow Green Beret had died of cancer caused by the U.S. military's use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. And when it does come time to lay all the cards on the table regarding Rambo's broad set of skills, via a masterfully delivered monologue by Richard Crenna, Kotcheff and star Sylvester Stallone keep everything within the ballpark of plausibility. He's "a man who's the best with guns, with knives, with his bare hands. A man who's been trained to ignore pain, ignore weather, to live off the land, to eat things that would make a billy goat puke. In Vietnam, his job was to dispose of enemy personnel. To kill. Period. Win by attrition."

Somewhere between Rambo waging a one-man war against a mix of Vietnamese and Russian soldiers in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" and literally going toe-to-toe with seemingly the entire Soviet Army in "Rambo III," reality took a holiday from Stallone's series. There was a half-hearted attempt to make Rambo's exploits semi-believable again in 2008's "Rambo," but it was foolish to dial the mayhem back. So in planning the follow-up to the fourth film in the series, Stallone toyed with catapulting his unstoppable hero into the science fiction genre. Why didn't he follow through?

A year after "Rambo" grossed a respectable if unspectacular $113 million worldwide on a $50 million budget, rumors began circulating online that Stallone was developing a fifth installment that would pit his hero against a unit of genetically-enhanced super soldiers à la "Universal Soldier." Stallone quickly took to Ain't It Cool News in September 2009 to refute this. There would be no Dolph Lundgren or Jean-Claude Van Damme-like cyborgs.

"It's actually a feral beast," Stallone revealed. "It's this amalgamation of fury and intelligence and pure, unadulterated rage. It's before men became...hu-men." Basically, he was drawing on James Byron Huggins' 1999 sci-fi/action novel "Hunter," in which "a half-human abomination" created by a clandestine military research agency escapes a base in the Arctic Circle and starts acting like a savage fool. Rambo, of course, is the only man alive who can stop the creature — though Stallone, perhaps with an eye towards passing the series' torch, gave his character a little help by adding a capable young sidekick named Beau.

As Stallone explained to AICN:

"[T]hat's what makes it uniquely different...man's conscience fighting his dark, dangerous, uncontrollable subconscious. Very similar to the plot in 'Forbidden Planet'...when the doctor couldn't control his mind and his subconscious took over and became a savage killing machine. It's your worst nightmare. You're battling your primitive self."

Titled "Rambo V: The Savage Hunt," Nu Image/Millennium Films believed in the project enough to release a plot synopsis and concept art, but it all proved to be a whim. Stallone quickly reverted to a plot about Rambo rescuing a kidnapped girl from a Mexican drug cartel, which, a decade later, became the dreadful "Rambo: Last Blood." Finally, the only force that could put John Rambo down for good was a box office failure. But hey, the franchise was interesting while it lasted; check out our ranking of every "Rambo" film right here.