Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1177962
The significance of this genesis also highlights how the relationship between the Production Designer and the director has far-reaching narrative consequences. Stallone, who was also directing the Rambo (2008) film, was looking for an epilogue ending but had yet to arrive at one as shooting began. As the weeks continued, during a very difficult shoot in the jungles of Thailand, we explored different possible endings. He did not want a "written" ending; he wanted a visual one. Finally, he sent me stateside to find Rambo's family ranch. He wanted something iconic. There would be no exposition in the film as to where he was other than that mailbox and a dusty road somewhere in the USA. I showed him only one location. It was a landscape in the Antelope Valley of California. It had the epic scope of a Western. The land was an open horizon over grasslands that terminated at the foot of the San Gabriel Mountains. It was a bull's-eye. The shot was done in one take. That wordless ending was a hugely satisfying and instructive moment for me. In that one and extremely long shot, the viewer would witness not only the closure of one story but the beginning of another. Rambo finally returns home (to Bowie, Arizona, to be exact per Rambo mythology). Although it was never even conceived of at the time, I had more than a hunch that this ranch would feature prominently again sometime in the future of this saga. But in Bulgaria?! Many years later, I would receive the call to do Rambo: Last Blood. By then, the public had not only embraced the reappearance of the aging hero but, along with it, a whole generation of tough guys of a certain age. In fact, driving this engine was Stallone himself, who expanded the parade with The Expendables in 2010. Last Blood would be produced in Bulgaria by Millennium Films. There would be seven weeks of preproduction and the production would shoot at their Nu Boyana studio facilities on the outskirts of the Bulgarian capital, Sofia. The realization of an action film is complicated. I of course, balked at the idea of only seven weeks of preproduction (which grew close to twelve after all was said A C A. RAMBO'S RANCH AS SEEN AT THE END OF RAMBO (2008). B. RAMBO'S RANCH HOUSE ILLUSTRATION. DIGITAL PAINTING BY FRANCO- GIACOMO CARBONE. C. RAMBO'S RANCH HOUSE IN PROGRESS. SET PHOTO. B