Sylvester Stallone has signed on for a post-apocalyptic adventure from producer Michael Bay. Stallone is attached to star in Little America, which is expected to garner a lot of attention at the European Film Market. The film is set in a dystopian future where the United States of America has become a war zone. Stallone plays a former Army Ranger hired by an Asian billionaire to seek out his missing daughter. Stallone’s character is accompanied on the quest by the missing woman’s well-trained sister. Together, they make their way to Little America, the walled-off American refugee community located in Hong Kong.
Rowan Athale, who wrote the spec script, will direct the feature. Universal had purchased the project but has since backed out. Bay is executive producing on behalf of his company Platinum Dunes. With films like 6 Underground and the Transformers franchise under his belt, it’s safe to say that Bay knows what an action blockbuster should look like.
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The project has invited comparison to films like John Carpenter’s Escape From New York, the 1981 dystopian sci-fi action movie starring Kurt Russell. Filming is expected to get underway in the summer, once Stallone finishes work on the superhero movie Samaritan.
Athale’s previous work includes the 2014 heist movie Wasteland and the 2019 thriller Strange But True. Stallone’s most recent movie was Rambo: Last Blood, which earned $91 million. The film was not well-received by critics, earning a 1-out-of-5 review from ComicBook.com’s Kofi Outlaw.
“[I]f you’re still hoping that Last Blood will still be enjoyable on the level of 2008’s Rambo, with its buildup to an orgy of blood and gore, don’t be fooled,” Outlaw wrote. “Stallone’s directorial work actually held Rambo together despite its cartoonish violence, while Stallone’s sappy performance as a haunted man trying not to let the monster back out could be enjoyed with delicious winking irony. Last Blood offers no room for humor, intentional or not, and is drab, depressing, and wholly disappointing. Do yourself a favor: just rewatch Rambo and tell yourself the franchise ended there to spare yourself the PTSD.”
Stallone revealed in September that he’s also working on rebooting Cobra as a television series. “I’m talking with Robert Rodriguez right now about Cobra, which looks like that could happen,” Stallone said. “It’s basically his baby now, and we’re hoping this ends up becoming a reality.”
Are you excited about Stallone’s next action outing? Let us know in the comments.
Source: Deadline
