According to the local media, during the last months the 72-year-old Stallone trained hard to prepare for the role of former Green Beret John Rambo, who is asked to save young kidnapped women from a large Mexican sex-trafficking cartel. The film is directed by Adrian Grunberg and written by Matt Cirulnick.

Bulgarian media reported that the shooting of scenes with extras started on 17 September 2018. The famed Bulgarian Stone Desert (Pobiti Kamani) located near the Black sea town of Varna is expected to double for the Mexican setting.

Bulgaria, which is one of Stallone’s preferred countries for filming, will host him in the beginning of 2020 for the forthcoming shooting of Expendables 4, once again using Nu Boyana’s facilities just as they were used during the shooting of Expendables 2 and Expendables 3.