{"id":430900,"date":"2026-05-16T18:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430900\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T18:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:13:08","slug":"james-franco-apparently-filmed-a-role-for-noah-centineos-weird-rambo-prequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430900\/","title":{"rendered":"James Franco apparently filmed a role for Noah Centineo’s weird Rambo prequel"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been roughly eight years since James Franco last appeared in a major Hollywood production\u2014not coincidentally, the same amount of time since The Los Angeles Times\u00a0ran a January 2018 article<\/a> in which several women accused the actor of abusing his position as the very famous movie star head of an acting school in order to behave in sexually inappropriate ways toward his female students. (Franco ultimately settled the lawsuit that came out of the accusations to the tune of more than $2 million back in 2021<\/a>, although he continued to deny the specific allegations.) Although he\u2019s continued to work since then\u2014mostly in Italian films\u2014Franco hasn\u2019t appeared in a studio production since his HBO show The Deuce\u00a0rolled out its final episodes in the fall of 2019.<\/p>\n

Lionsgate is apparently about to change that, though, as\u00a0Variety\u00a0reports<\/a> that Franco will appear in the studio\u2019s upcoming\u00a0Rambo\u00a0prequel\u00a0John Rambo. Franco was reportedly making the rounds at Cannes this week when he told\u00a0Deadline\u00a0he\u2019d filmed a role in a \u201cbig studio movie\u201d that was later confirmed to be\u00a0Rambo, which stars Noah Centineo as the younger version of Sylvester Stallone\u2019s action hero. It\u2019s not clear yet what role Franco will play in the prequel, which will also feature David Harbour as the character played by Richard Crenna in the original\u00a0Rambo\u00a0movies, although the part is being described as a \u201csmall role.\u201d The film began filming in January of 2026 and reportedly wrapped earlier this month, with an eye toward a 2027 release.<\/p>\n

John Rambo\u00a0is being helmed by\u00a0Sisu\u00a0director Jalmari Helander, from a script by Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani. The film, which is being pitched as an \u201corigin story\u201d for Rambo, is also set to co-star Yao, Jason Tobin, Quincy Isaiah, Jefferson White, and recent White Lotus\u00a0standout Tayme Thapthimthong.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been roughly eight years since James Franco last appeared in a major Hollywood production\u2014not coincidentally, the same…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-430900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}