Cliffhanger Sequel with Sylvester Stallone Announced

Movies

Sylvester Stallone is going mountain climbing again. The action star is set to return in a sequel to Cliffhanger, one of his 90s action movies. Directed by the great Renny Harlin, Cliffhanger starred Stallone as a mountain rescue ranger with a troubled past who gets trapped on a mountain with a team of ruthless thieves and must save his friends from the bad guys. Janine Turner and Michael Rooker also starred, with John Lithgow as the villain. Ric Roman Waugh will direct the sequel, though nothing beyond his and Sly’s involvement is known right now. Cliffhanger is ten years old this year, and it was a big hit for Stallone, even getting parodied in the opening sequence of Ace Venture: When Nature Calls.

That’s… unexpected. Cliffhanger is a great action movie, but I don’t see the point in a sequel, especially now. The setup feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience; is Stallone going to be trapped on another mountain with another group of bad guys he has to pick off one by one? His character isn’t a soldier or a cop; he’s a mountain rescue man who doesn’t normally deal with a situation like that. That’s what made Cliffhanger exciting, but it only works once. (One of the producers trots out the “We have to reintroduce it to a new generation” nonsense; it’s on Netflix, for God’s sake!) I guess it’s better than a remake, but it’s still unnecessary. It’s too bad they can’t get Renny Harlin back to direct; he made some outstanding action movies in the 90s, but all anyone remembers him for is Cutthroat Island, a legendary bomb of a pirate movie. It’s a shame that one dud outweighs Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and others. And I don’t think we should hold out hope for them getting a villain that’s anywhere near as good as John Lithgow’s Eric Qualen. But the world turns, and Hollywood beats dead horses, so here we are.