This wasn’t a big box-office weekend for anyone but Fox*, who had four films in the top ten with Juno hitting $100m and Alvin going over the freakin’ top to hit $200m. I don’t use that phrase lightly; Sly Stallone’s Rambo beat his arm wrestling opus by only a couple million this weekend. Rambo pulled $18.1m, a far cry from the series’ semi-glorious past.
But that’s enough for Harvey Weinsten, who doesn’t even own the rights to the series. The Weinstein Company shared domestic rights with Lionsgate, while Nu Image (which might have been a band name around the time First Blood II made explosive arrows a household necessity) owns the flick. And yet Harvey is talking sequel, based on projected and potentially non-existent global box office. He envisions bringing Rambo back to the United States for film number five. Which, of course, is a painfully obvious plot embryo given the end of the current film, where our hero, realizing the Wal Mart has financed the Burmese bloodbath, travels back to the States to piss on Sam Walton’s grave. Actually, that might have just been the first draft.
In reality, though, what would John Rambo fight? Terrorists already seem so outdated. Maybe he could take on the recession, or the housing market. Rambo vs. Shady Homebuilders Inc. might pull an audience.
Anyway, this is pretty much Rambo: Oh Don Piano at the moment, though it’s more glorious than a talking cat. If Harvey (or anyone else) can make it happen, I’ll be there with money in hand, just like I was last Thursday night at midnight.
*It was actually a good weekend for this time of year, though.