8 Small-Scale Movies That Blew Up Into Blockbuster Action Franchises

By 1981, Sylvester Stallone had already established himself as an up-and-coming heavyweight in the action genre, having completed two Rocky movies with a third on the way. And while First Blood seems to be another instance of young Sly's affinity for surprisingly nuanced roles

It went from being a violent, gritty, psychological drama about the effects of war on veterans who were trying to re-acclimate themselves into society, into a grand exercise in figuring out the most exciting ways to present war porn to a mass audience.

The beauty about First Blood is that John Rambo is not a particularly special person. He's mostly just a stand-in for all of the nameless, faceless Vietnam vets who were haunted by the things they'd seen and done. Hell, his name didn't even make it into the title until the second instalment - the awkwardly named Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Flash forward to 2008 and Rambo is a merciless, invincible killing machine with an unquenchable bloodlust. In this version of Rambo, there's little need for talking. And compared to the original film, where John doesn't actually kill anyone, roughly half the runtime of the 2008 movie is dedicated to him destroying everyone within eyesight.

Naturally, it's the latter film that drew huge bucks at the box office.