Sylvester Stallone (Tulsa King) is set to return for a sequel to the 1993 action thriller Cliffhanger, which Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen) will direct from a script by Mark Bianculli (Hunters).
Neal H. Moritz’s Original Film (Fast & Furious franchise) will produce with Rocket Science, as well as Stallone and Braden Aftergood’s Balboa Productions. Casting for other roles is currently underway.
While no details as to the plot of the sequel have been divulged, Stallone will reprise his character of Ranger Gabriel “Gabe” Walker, from the original film directed by Renny Harlin. The TriStar Pictures title, which premiered in Cannes and grossed over $255M worldwide, watched as Walker looked to help rescue a band of stranded hikers, only to discover that they were in fact a gang of violent criminals looking to recover their missing $100M following a plane crash.
Michael France and Stallone co-wrote the script for the original film, with John Lithgow, Michael Rooker and Janine Turner among those rounding out the cast.
Producers on the reboot will include Moritz and Toby Jaffe for Original Film, Stallone under his Balboa Productions banner, and Thorsten Schumacher with partner Lars Sylvest for Rocket Science, which will also finance. Waugh, Ana Lily Amirpour, Chance Wright, Gianluca Chakra and Hisham Alghanim are on board as executive producers. Rocket Science will launch foreign sales this month in Cannes, with CAA Media Finance repping North American and Chinese rights.
Wright Productions and Entertainment, and separately Front Row Entertainment provided development finance for Cliffhanger. Rocket Science has a partnership agreement with StudioCanal for the film’s rights.
“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. To be at the helm of the next chapter, scaling the Italian Alps with the legend himself, Sylvester Stallone, is a dream come true,” said Waugh in a statement. “It’s going to be a great challenge and blast taking this franchise to new heights, a responsibility I don’t take lightly.”
Added Moritz, “I’ll never forget the thrill I felt watching Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger. I am incredibly excited to be working with him and Ric Waugh to continue the story of Gabe Walker and introduce this iconic story to a new generation of filmgoers around the world.”
Stallone most recently inked a deal to produce and star in the action comedy Never Too Old to Die which was conceived as a starring vehicle for him and has landed at Amazon Studios, as we told you first. The film centered on a mysterious murder within a retirement home for spies will be the first project falling under Stallone and Balboa’s multi-year, first-look deal with Amazon Studios.
Stallone recently led the Prime Video superhero pic Samaritan and currently stars as New York Mafia capo Dwight “The General” Manfredi in the acclaimed Paramount+ crime drama series Tulsa King from creator Taylor Sheridan. He reprises his MCU role of Ravager Captain Stakar Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, which hits theaters May 5th, and will appear alongside his family in the docuseries The Family Stallone launching on Paramount+ on May 17. He’ll also return for the newest installment of the hit action franchise The Expendables, releasing in August via Lionsgate.
Waugh is well known for his work in the action thriller space on films including Lionsgate’s Snitch starring Dwayne Johnson, Barry Pepper and Susan Sarandon; Lionsgate’s Angel Has Fallen with Gerard Butler and Morgan Freeman; Greenland starring Butler and Morena Baccarin for STX; and Shot Caller starring Nikolaj Coster Waldau, Lake Bell, Omari Hardwick and Jon Bernthal. His next project, Open Road Films’ Kandahar, again reuniting him with Butler in the leading role, is set to release in theaters this month. He is also attached to the Greenland sequel, Greenland: Migration, which is currently in development.
Also on Rocket Science’s Cannes slate is Todd Haynes’ Competition entry, May December, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore.
Stallone and Balboa Productions are represented by CAA. Waugh is repped by Range Media Partners and Johnson Shapiro Slewett & Kole. Bianculli is with WME, The Framework Collective and Felker Toczek Suddleson.