And, make no mistake, Rambo worked on every conceivable level – as a flat-out action movie, as a piece of issue-based social filmmaking, as a way of utterly obliterating the Burmese tourist industry, as a warning against the use of HGH at an advanced age, as a reminder that nobody looks good with a mullet. We could go on.

But anyway, that’s why we’re thrilled at the news that Sylvester Stallone has just signed on to direct Rambo 5, due to start filming next year. What’s more, Sylvester Stallone is also thought to be writing Rambo 6. Plus Stallone wants Rambo 7 to be an animated cartoon, and Rambo 8 to be a musical, and Rambo 9 to be a stageplay and Rambo 10 to be a remake of Rambo 6 starring children and puppets and Rambo 11 to be an avant-garde Warhol-style close-up of one of his own eyelashes that lasts for 48 hours.

All true. Except for the last 57 words.

Though easy to mock at the time, when Sylvester Stallone revisited one of his most famous cinematic creations for Rocky Balboa, he crafted an elegant, eloquent finale to the series that dropped the overblown posturing of its previous sequels and let the character go with a respect and dignity that nobody really thought possible.

And, right after that, Sylvester Stallone made another Rambo movie, about an old bloke killing everything and running around going “Aaargh!” a lot. So it all balances out.

And, unquestionably, Rambo was a success. It made money. It regained Sylvester Stallone’s position as the daddy of the gormless action movie. It reminded Americans that diplomacy never works and the only to resolve international disputes is to send a mental old pensioner into the woods to tear out peoples’ throats and shred them to pieces with a minigun.

That’s why it’s nothing short of genius that Sylvester Stallone has just signed up to make Rambo 5, while simultaneously writing Rambo 6. Moviehole reports:

The aging action-hero has already written “Rambo 5” – rumoured to be shooting next year in Bulgaria, though set in the United States – and is about to put pen to paper on a sixth installment of the series. Also, the next two films won’t be War films like the original movies… but just straight-up action thrillers.

That’s awesome news – when it comes to near-silent beefcakes mumbling something vaguely philosophical before firing 600 arrows through a guerrilla’s face, nobody does it better than Sylvester Stallone. But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves here – we still have our reservations about Rambo 5 and Rambo 6. For instance:

*Action thrillers? That sounds terrible. Scooby Doo is an action thriller. If Rambo 5 is about Sylvester Stallone investigating a haunted funfair we’re going to be deeply pissed off.

*To make Rambo 5 better than Rambo 4, Stallone clearly needs to up the body count. We’re not sure that’s even physically possible, to be honest, unless the whole film is just a fast-forwarded domino line of shifty-looking south east Asian men getting their faces blown off one after another for a full day.

*If Rambo 5 starts filming next year, Sylvester Stallone will be 63, so he could feasibly be in his late sixties by the time Rambo 6 rolls around. Let’s hope that Sylvester Stallone has already factored that into the script and made sure that Rambo’s biggest enemies in that film are incontinence and an inability to eat soup properly.

*Remember that Sylvester Stallone needed vast quantities of Human Growth Hormone to keep him in shape for Rambo 4. We wouldn’t be surprised if, for Rambo 6, Stallone has to resort to drinking babies’ spinal fluid and injecting himself with unicorn semen.

Other than all that, though, great. We can’t wait.

Read more:

Sly Directing Rambo 5 – Moviehole