Netflix's hit action-thriller Rebel Ridge could easily become a franchise, but it needs to avoid running into the same problem as a movie it's often compared to, First Blood. Rebel Ridge has been a resounding success for Netflix, and talk of a sequel has already started just a month after its release date. There are plenty of potential stories for Terry Richmond (Aaron Pierre) to get into more trouble, and turning Rebel Ridge into an action franchise seems like a promising idea. If it does become the next big action franchise, though, Rebel Ridge will need to learn from the history of action movies.

The premise of Rebel Ridge instantly drew comparisons to First Blood, one of Sylvester Stallone's earliest action hits. Both movies follow military veterans who are harassed by a small town police force and decide to fight back against their corruption and biases. First Blood is a classic for a reason, and Rebel Ridge being compared to it is far from an insult, but Netflix's new film has to avoid one potentially massive problem with Rambo and quite a few other notable action franchises. If it doesn't, Rebel Ridge 2 could become the first installment of just another generic action franchise.

How Rebel Ridge 2 Set Up A Bigger Sequel

Rebel Ridge 2 Will Need To Up The Stakes Of The Original

Rebel Ridge has already set up a sequel, and there's a very good chance that it will be bigger and flashier than the original. There's always a pull for sequels to "outdo" the original in some way, whether through bigger action scenes or higher stakes, and Rebel Ridge 2 may be no exception. The sequel could easily bring back characters like Summer, Evan, or Jessica to help Terry again, and having all four of them working together from the start would require a bigger threat for them to take down. Rebel Ridge 2 may be inclined to escalate its scope, enemies, and action.

There's also another reason Rebel Ridge 2 may focus on a bigger story: the original was a huge success. The original quickly became the most watched movie on Netflix shortly after it was released, and Rebel Ridge even regained the top spot almost a month after it premiered. Rebel Ridge also achieved such a high viewership with a budget between $25 and $40 million. Rebel Ridge 2 would likely have an even larger budget at its disposal, given it's now an almost guaranteed hit. That could let it include even more set pieces, explosions, and a bigger story.

Rambo & Other Action Franchises Got Bigger & Sillier With Their Sequels

Rambo, Die Hard, & Fast & Furious All Got Goofy After Several Sequels

If Rebel Ridge 2 does include more explosions, a bigger story, and higher stakes, it risks running into a problem both Rambo and several other action franchises struggled with. First Blood, the original Rambo movie, was a fairly self-contained and small-scale movie about a veteran fighting back against a corrupt police department. It was intimate, serious, and dealt with some heavy topics like the treatment of veterans after the Vietnam War and post-traumatic stress disorder. The subsequent Rambo movies, however, were more about seeing what was the biggest thing Rambo could blow up, and the franchise got rather silly.

Rambo: Last Blood perfectly illustrates how the franchise lost its serious tone: Rambo literally carves a man's heart out of his chest and shows it to him as he dies. Action franchises becoming sillier and losing sight of what made the original great isn't unique to Rambo, however. Die Hard, for example, started as a simple story about a cop in a hostage situation, yet in Live Free or Die Hard, John McClane was destroying a fighter jet mid-flight. Likewise, the Fast & Furious franchise started as a story about street racing, yet Fast X sees Dominic Toretto driving down the side of an exploding dam.

Rebel Ridge is much more grounded and focused, though, so seeing Terry taking down an international conspiracy would lose a lot of the charm the original had.

The continual one-upping of action sequels isn't necessarily a bad thing. The Mission: Impossible franchise, for example, gave Ethan Hunt bigger and more ludicrous missions to complete, and it worked quite well. Rebel Ridge, however, won't be able to grow in the same way Mission: Impossible did. Mission: Impossible had a somewhat goofy premise from the start, so going bigger never felt like it betrayed the spirit of what made the original so endearing. Rebel Ridge is much more grounded and focused, though, so seeing Terry taking down an international conspiracy would lose a lot of the charm the original had.

How Rebel Ridge 2 Can Avoid Action Franchise Problems

Director Jeremy Saulnier & Some Story Decisions Can Keep Rebel Ridge Grounded

If it does become a franchise, Rebel Ridge needs to avoid falling into the same trap that Rambo, Die Hard, and Fast & Furious did. Solving that issue is easier said than done, however, especially considering the financial pressure for Rebel Ridge 2 to outperform the original. Luckily, there's one easy way for Rebel Ridge to avoid going overboard with its action or story: keeping Jeremy Saulnier as its director. As a director, Saulnier has mostly been concerned with telling small, personal stories, usually on a bare-bone budget. If he continues to direct future installments in the franchise, his influence may be enough to keep Rebel Ridge grounded.

There are also plenty of potential story reasons for keeping Rebel Ridge 2 more grounded in scope. The sequel could take on Reacher's formula and show Terry going to a new town to uncover a new, similarly small-scale conspiracy with a new cast of characters to and oppose him. There could even be a direct sequel where Terry has to deal with the fallout of his actions in Shelby Springs, a setup that would keep the story localized and significantly raise Rebel Ridge 2's stakes without going over the top. No matter what solution Rebel Ridge settles on, however, it needs to make a decision soon.

Will Rebel Ridge 2 Happen?

A Sequel To Rebel Ridge Seems Very Likely

The reason Rebel Ridge needs to figure out how to handle a sequel and potential franchise is because Rebel Ridge 2 seems almost like an inevitability. The original was a resounding success both in of its viewership and its critical reception. Rebel Ridge earned a best movies on Netflix. The streaming service will almost certainly want to capitalize on its success, which makes Rebel Ridge 2 extremely likely to be made. It's likely still a few years away, but the creators of Rebel Ridge will need to figure out how to preserve the original's appeal in the sequel.

Source: Rotten Tomatoes