Sequel to Sylvester Stallone’s 1993 Classic Films This Fall

Sylvester Stallone might be getting ready to thrill audiences with Season 2 of his hit Paramount+ crime series Tulsa King, but a new report suggests the 78-year-old star is also getting ready to deliver more death-defying stunts in Cliffhanger 2, a sequel to the 1993 action-thriller that Stallone starred in alongside the likes of John Lithgow and Michael Rooker. Produced on a budget of $70 million, Cliffhanger grossed a worldwide total of $255 million, and was met with generally favorable reviews upon its debut, and was nominated for three Academy Awards, including one for Best Visual Effects.

Per Screen Daily, Cliffhanger 2 is expected to start filming this fall after receiving a healthy infusion of cash from the Austrian film commission. Original director Renny Harlin will not be returning for the sequel, which will instead be helmed by Jean-Francois Richet, who was responsible for the 2005 remake of the John Carpenter classic Assault on Precinct 13. Locations for the sequel include Austria and Bavaria, as well as the Penzing Studios near Munich, Germany.

Taking a page out of recent legacy sequels such as Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F, Cliffhanger 2 will see Stallone return as Gabe Walker alongside his mountain-climbing daughter. There’s no word yet on who else will star in the production, but based on the synopsis below, it seems to feature all the thrills that made the original such an endearing action classic.

“Gabe is now living in the Dolomites where he runs an exclusive mountain lodge. When he and a high-profile client are taken hostage during an adventurous weekend trip, his daughter has to use all her climbing skills to outwit the kidnappers, triggering a battle of life and death.”

Richet Seems to Have Listened to Cliffhanger’s Director

Before Cliffhanger came along, Harlin was known for directing such hits as A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, and Die Hard 2. However, following the 1993 Stallone classic, he would go on to direct one of the most disastrous box office bombs ever, Cutthroat Island. He’s now in charge of The Strangers reboot, a planned trilogy of films whose first outing earlier this year did pretty well at the box office but flopped with critics.

That being said, as the director of Cliffhanger, Harlin had some advice earlier this year for those involved in the sequel, saying that he hoped they’d be able to shoot on-location for the movie instead of on a sound stage. He says that back in his day, it just made everything feel more real.

“I hope for the filmmakers’ sake that they will be able to shoot in real locations because [when] we did this [it] was before the advent of digital cinema. So, when we shot the movie, we spent six months in the Italian Alps, in the real conditions, shooting everything for real. And the actors had to climb mountains, literally. And nowadays, I feel that, in so many cases, these kinds of more complicated movies, they end up being shot in a studio. And then the snow on the mountains and the circumstances are created digitally.”

Given the fact that Cliffhanger 2 will be filmed in Austria and Bavaria, it seems that Richet has heeded Harlin’s advice to a certain degree, though it remains to be seen just how many of the stunts will be performed on the side of an actual mountain, instead of in front of a green screen. Hollywood has come a long way since the early ‘90s, and safety should take front and center over anything that might put someone in harm’s way. We’ll have more news on Stallone’s latest as it becomes available.