First Blood Was Floating Around Hollywood for 10 Years Before It Got to Stallone
People have to move mountains to take a movie idea from inception to finished product. As it turns out, ‘First Blood’ (1982) was considered cursed property since it sat for 10 years in development hell after they bought the book rights (yes, it’s based on a book, and we’ll get to that later).
The film’s co-writer and director, Ted Kotcheff, explained how there were multiple drafts of the script (17 to be exact) written by the time he was hired to make it happen. But even after he finished his draft, it was still turned down because of how depressing the story was. Eventually, the producers of ‘First Blood’ decided to buy the rights from Warner Brothers, which then took another year.
By the time the script fell on Stallone’s lap, the story of Rambo had already been bouncing around Hollywood for a full decade.