Film producers Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe have blamed financier Rocket Science for Sylvester Stallone not being in the reboot of his 1993 action thriller, “Cliffhanger.”
In new court documents obtained by TheWrap, Moritz and Jaffe have sued Rocket Science Industries and Cliffhanger 2 Productions for breach of contract, breach of implied contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. In the filing, the producers accuse the defendants of alleged nonpayment and repudiation of producer fee agreements tied to the “Cliffhanger” reboot.
They also allege that the financiers were responsible for Stallone refusing to commit to the project, claiming they wouldn’t agree to the Oscar winner’s fee demands.
“In April 2023, Moritz and Jaffe had a Zoom call with Stallone and received his notes on the script,” the lawsuit states. “They introduced Stallone to the proposed director [Ric Roman] Waugh, who then spoke directly. Moritz and Jaffe helped to get deals done for Stallone as the male lead and Waugh as the director before the Cannes market began.”
According to the documents, “from the outset,” Stallone’s team made it clear that “his fee would need to be escrowed (i.e. guaranteed) in order to lock in his participation.”
The lawsuit continues: “He wanted to do the Picture during Fall 2023 before production began for Season 2 of his television series, ‘Tulsa King.’ But Rocket Science failed to secure Stallone’s commitment to do the Picture because it refused to guarantee Stallone’s fee.”
Moritz and Jaffe state Rocket Science prepared a sizzle reel to pitch the movie to sales agents, but that the promotional video was based on “Stallone starring as the male lead actor, Waugh as the director and prominently [featured] Moritz as a producer.”
“In June 2023, Waugh withdrew from the Project because Rocket Science had failed to lock Stallone or to hire crew to enable filming to start by Fall 2023,” the document adds. “Waugh had a firm commitment from another project.”
Moritz and Jaffe claim they spent “considerable time attempting to lock Stallone’s schedule for a Spring 2024 start,” but the latter’s “Tulsa King” commitments made it so he could not sign on. Though, the producers reiterate their belief that “Stallone’s refusal to commit to the project was that Rocket Science refused to guarantee his fee.”
The producers say the lack of Stallone prompted another director, Jean-François Richet, to withdraw from the project in January 2024. From there, the “Cliffhanger” team was able to hire director Jaume Collet-Serra and brought Lily James on to play the female lead. Pierce Brosnan was eventually cast to fill Stallone’s shoes. However, the producers say they tried to get Russell Crowe for the movie, but that he also “dropped out.”
Moritz and Jaffe say that, after all of this, they were asked to defer their producers fees “due to the higher than expected fees being paid to the director and lead cast and the reduction of minimum guarantees for key foreign pre-sales territories of Spain, Latin America and Scandinavia due to Stallone’s decision to pull out of the Project.”
“The problem with the deferral of producer fees is not just that the producer gets paid later than he or she was supposed to be paid,” the lawsuit notes, “but deferral may result in the producer never getting the full agreed-upon fee or possibly not even any portion of the fee.”
The new “Cliffhanger,” which was written by Mark Bianculli and Melanie Toast, with a story by Ana Lily Amirpour, is set to release on August 28, 2026.
A representative for Rocket Science did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
