Hang on for some truly nail-biting news: Sylvester Stallone will reprise his role as Gabe Walker in a reboot of his 1993 mount-climbing thriller “Cliffhanger.” He’ll also produce. Taking over for director Renny Harlin is Ric Roman Waugh (the upcoming “Kandahar”). Neal H. Moritz’s Original Film will produce with Rocket Science and Stallone and Braden Aftergood’s Balboa Productions, and sales will launch in Cannes this month.
Stallone starred in the original film as Walker, a ranger in the Colorado Rockies suffering from trauma following a fatal accident who soon gets embroiled in a scheme involving a sinister former Military Intelligence officer (John Lithgow, chewing scenery) who is after some missing Treasury money. Since the money was lost in the mountains, the bad guys turn to Walker to try and find it.
“Growing up with the biggest action films of the 80s and 90s, working on many of them myself, ‘Cliffhanger’ was by far one of my favorite spectacles,” said Waugh, who worked as a stunt person on action classics like “Hard Target,” “Last Action Hero” and “Lethal Weapon 2,” in an official statement. “To be at the helm of the next chapter, scaling the Italian Alps with the legend himself, Sylvester Stallone, is a dream come true. It’s going to be a great challenge and blast taking this franchise to new heights, a responsibility I don’t take lightly.”
Waugh also directed the 2020 Gerard Butler vehicle “Greenland” and the 2019 sequel “Angel Has Fallen.”
Stallone, who can be seen in this week’s “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” and is starring in the upcoming “Expendables 4,” is having a moment. His Paramount+ series “Tulsa King,” soon coming back for season 2, was a breakout streaming hit. And he’s got a reality show called “The Family Stallone” coming soon to the streaming service.
The “Cliffhanger” reboot script was written by Mark Bianculli (a writer on Jordan Peele’s “Hunters”) and casting is currently underway. The film’s producers are Neal H. Moritz and Toby Jaffe for Original Film, Stallone under his Balboa Productions banner and Thorsten Schumacher with partner Lars Sylvest for Rocket Science, who will also finance.
Waugh, Ana Lily Amirpour, Chance Wright, Gianluca Chakra and Hisham Alghanim serve as Executive Producers. Rocket Science will handle foreign sales in Cannes this month. CAA Media will represent North American and Chinese rights.
