8 Crazy Movie Sequels That Almost Happened That We Just Found Out About
Bruce Almighty 2, Wonder Woman 3, Rambo 4... Will the disappointment never end?
Hollywood is nothing if not a sequel making machine. Sequels, requels, prequels, spin-offs and reboots, these are the bread and butter of your franchise-baiting bigwigs who control the direction of the money and the next big blockbuster on a studio's slate.
But not all sequels are created equal. Many, in fact, make nothing out of something and trample all over the film that spawned them, sometimes dragging in a crowd but often simply existing to carve out their place in the bargain big (or in Prime Video's free content section, as the case may now be). Sometimes we wish they hadn't been made at all...
Careful what you wish for though; too many killer sequels have met that very fate, sniped by the studio, the producers or the director before they ever made their mark on our optical nerves. From hellish high-concept comedy capers to classic all-gun actioners, and as many blue people as James Cameron can fit in a frame, some big name titles have been binned before their time.
These eight almost happened, but have been waiting in the wings just to jump out and disappoint us when we least expect it.
8. Rambo IV (Rambo)
Sylvester Stallone made a big splash on the guns and muscles action scene with his first John Rambo flick, 1982's First Blood. While he has in recent years been keen to continue capitalising on this image, with series like The Expendables and return to the character in Rambo (2008) and Rambo: Last Blood (2019), at the end of the initial Rambo trilogy he was ready to hang up the Gatling gun for good.
Stallone believed the franchise' third entry (Rambo III, 1988) was going to be its biggest yet, and that it was the right place to end the story, so when production company Carolco Pictures came knocking with $34 million to start shooting Rambo IV straight away, Sly turned them down.
While Stallone did eventually return to the role, this was not the Rambo IV that might have happened, focusing on the war in Burma rather than returning to the Cold War conflict that Rambo III engaged with, and operating as something of a soft reboot rather than a direct sequel. The original fourth film promised to redeem the rough critical reception its predecessor received and bring the kind of no-nonsense, full-on bloodshed that 2008's fourth installment was both celebrated and reviled for to an entirely different frontier.