Carolco decides its destiny by spending too much on a ridiculous film that involves a man causes fire and bullets to steer clear. It's the Stallord's one jillionth appearance on the show and we haven't even gotten to Tango & Cash, Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot or Cliffhanger!
John Rambo (First Blood) vs John Rambo (First Blood: Part 2)
Fired, fired, fired, every one gets fired! The main production theme of Rambo 3 would be Stallone firing everyone at one point or another. Harry Kliener who wrote the scripts for Bullitt and Red Heat was hired to write the film. Then fired because Stallone didn't like the draft. Russell Mulcahy who we will of course remember as an Ausploitation import, directing such films as Razorback and Highlander, would be fired two weeks in. Replacement Peter MacDonald was the second unit director. He would end up shooting portions of the film himself as 3 cinematographers were all fired. Israel was chosen as a shooting location but as there were too many shooting restrictions the whole country was fired and they just shot in Arizona. They ran into a group of civil war re-enacters when getting to Arizona. The group boasted a membership of over 250. They weren't fired, however it makes me wonder what the original extras plan was if they just happened into these fellow and were subsequently able to then shoot the battle scenes. Jerry Goldsmith also wasn't fired, he did however do an entire score that Stallone didn't like, Stallone like the music from Rambo 2 better, which was also written by Goldsmith so he lucked out and didn't get fired.
The film is historic for two reasons. Firstly it was the most expensive movie ever made at the time of it's release with a production cost estimate of $68 million dollars. Apparently part of that cost was a gulf-stream that Stallone wanted, it cost $12 million. The film returned $53 million domestically. Producers lamented that the Russians, who had been waging war in Afghanistan for some time had pulled out just before release of the film, probably just to fuck the new Rambo movie, those shifty Reds will do anything to fuck Hollywood.
The second achievement was two years later when the Guinness Book of World Record rated it the most violent movie in history. This was quantified by 221 acts of violence, the qualifiers for an act of violence are unknown. The body-count ranges from 108 to 162 depending on source. Eventually it wouldn't matter as the fourth film in the series, Rambo, would double the body count. This would be Richard Crenna's last appearance in a Rambo film as, sadly, he would die in 2003, 5 years before the last installment. The fourth Rambo was dedicated to Crenna. This film was originally dedicated to the Mujaheddin, as we don't like them anymore the more recent releases have been dedicated to the "gallant people of Afghanistan".
KAEOF: Kirtwood "Muthafukin" Smith, Marcus Gilbert (who played Eric Von Schtalien in Biggles) and the non survival knife that is now 2 inches longer than the last and three inches longer than the first. Also keep an ear out for the Bill Medley version of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".
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