The Rambo Report: Five Films, Three Books, One Legend

Author Nat Segaloff has written dozens of books on film and tv history, but recently has been focusing on major film franchises with The Exorcist Legacy: 50 Years of Fear and Say Hello to My Little Friend: A Century of Scarface. His latest book from Citadel Press, The Rambo Report: Five Films, Three Books, One Legend, turns his sharp eye for detail towards Rambo.

At first glance, Rambo might seem an absurd topic to do a book on, but Segaloff really does it justice here starting with David Morrell’s 1972 novel First Blood and going all the way up to the final film in the series (so far?), 2019’s Rambo: Last Blood. Using a combination of new and vintage interviews, Nat Segaloff has a fun time taking readers into every nook and cranny whether it’s Richard Crenna’s overlooked career or the sometimes absurdist video games.

Of particular interest is the time spent detailing the massive differences between the different screenplays, the final released films, and the novelizations. David Morrell wrote the novels for Rambo: First Blood Part II and Rambo III which feature loads more characterization than the feature films, and the interviews Nat has with him are some of The Rambo Report’s most insightful.

Sometimes the sidebars (essentially mini-chapters) synopsizing the films and novelizations can be a bit much, but they work to remind readers how the final films unfold, which is often quite different from how their narratives started earlier in pre-production. Ideally, one should watch the movies before reading their respective chapters, but Segaloff is great about giving context so readers are never lost, whether it be from a historical or film production standpoint. There’s fun Hollywood stories here, and Nat Segaloff does a fine balancing act of presenting those alongside harrowing details of the real-world wars that inspired both the original novel and the films.

While the future of the Rambo series remains unclear (as Rambo so memorably says in his emotional monologue at the end of the film First Blood, “Nothing is over!”), Nat Segaloff’s The Rambo Report is a great read on Rambo’s current legacy for Stallone and film history fans alike.

The Rambo Report comes out on April 29, 2025, and is available for pre-order in hardcover, Kindle, and Audible formats. A complimentary copy was provided for review.