Sylvester Stallone Sets ‘Cliffhanger’ Reboot With ‘Angel Has Fallen’ Director
Sylvester Stallone is ready to scale new heights with a reboot of his 1993 action thriller, Cliffhanger.
Ric Roman Waugh, who helmed action movies Angel Has Fallen and Greenland, is set to direct the feature, which will see Stallone reprise his role of mountain climber and rescue ranger, Gabe Walker. The reboot has a script by Mark Bianculli, a writer-consulting producer on Amazon series Hunters.
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Neal H. Moritz’s Original Film, best known for the multi-billion-dollar The Fast and the Furious franchise, will produce with production and sales outfit Rocket Science as well Stallone and Braden Aftergood’s Balboa Productions. Rocket Science is launching sales during this month’s Cannes film market. CAA Media will represent North American and Chinese rights.
Written by Michael France with a rewrite by Stallone, Cliffhanger featured Stallone as Walker, a man haunted by a rescue gone wrong, who finds himself called up for a rescue with his former colleagues. That mission turns out to be a fake distress call, however, as a group of international thieves are in the midst of trying to find their stolen loot after a botched air heist. Metaphorical and literal cliffhanging ensues.
The 1993 movie was directed by Renny Harlin and was hit, despite a brutal production that almost bankrupt the lead production company, Carolco, which at two points couldn’t pay the crew.
Producers on the reboot include Moritz and Toby Jaffe for Original Film, and Stallone 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.
“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 in a 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 is repped by Range Media Partners. Stallone is repped by CAA.
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