Sylvester Stallone, who is finally set to release his final Rambo movie soon, is eager to mine some of the other IP from his early career for more work in the future. Besides a possible Rocky movie, which could help keep Stallone’s character alive in spite of his decision not to work on any future Creed movies, the writer/director/actor says he would like an opportunity to revive his 1986 movie Cobra as a series for a streaming network. The film, from Rambo: First Blood Part II and Tombstone director George Cosmatos, earned more than $150 million at the domestic box office against a $25 million budget, but never got a sequel.
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The movie centered around Los Angeles Police Lieutenant Marion “Cobra” Cobretti (Stallone), who found himself at the center of a spate of murders carried out by a secret society called New Order. The idea is that they were killers who selected “weak” members of society for extermination. Along the way, Cobra takes a model named Ingrid (played by Stallone’s then-wife Brigitte Nielsen) into protective custody after she witnesses New Order’s leader in action. The two tried to find normal life in a small town, but end up having to fight their way through an army of bad guys for survival anyway.
“That (conceit) was what if Bruce Springsteen had a gun?” Stallone told an audience member during a recent Q&A (via The AV Club). “That was rock n’ roll meets drama. That should have been another franchise because that character was so cool. And I blew it. My personal life got in the way. But we’re trying to bring it back as a streaming TV series. Bring out the zombie squad. I’m long gone, but the idea is really good.”
The comment about his personal life likely relates to Stallone’s messy 1987 divorce from Brigitte Nielsen, with whom he starred in Cobra. Given that the relationship between the two was at the core of the movie, it would be difficult to have made a sequel without her. Nielsen appeared in Rocky IV and then Cobra with Stallone in consecutive years, but then the pair did not collaborate again until last year’s Creed II.
Like the Rocky idea, a Cobra series seems more like the seed of an idea than anything fans should be looking out for right away, but never say never, especially where revivals of ’80s Stallone properties are concerned.
