How the new Cliffhanger movie lost Sylvester Stallone
Back in 1993, Sylvester Stallone and director Renny Harlin teamed up to bring us a really cool action movie called Cliffhanger – and on August 28, 2026, Row K will be releasing a Cliffhanger reboot starring Pierce Brosnan and Lily James. At one point, this reboot was set up as a sequel to the original film, with Sylvester Stallone reprising the role of Gabe Walker… but something went wrong, Stallone dropped out, and Gabe Walker was rewritten to be Brosnan’s character, Ray Cooper. Now, Variety has revealed exactly what happened behind the scenes to cause this creative shake-up: the new Cliffhanger movie lost Sylvester Stallone due to pay and scheduling issues.
Cliffhanger Refresher
Directed by Harlin from a script by Stallone and Michael France, Cliffhanger had the following synopsis: For Rocky Mountain Rescue, the mission is almost routine: locate five climbers. With the woman he loves and his best friend, Gabe Walker braves the icy peaks only to discover that the distress call is really a trap set by merciless international terrorist Eric Qualen. Now millions of dollars and their own lives hang in the balance. Against explosive firepower, bitter cold, and dizzying heights, Walker must outwit Qualen in a deadly game of hide-and-seek.
Behind-the-Scenes Issues
There have been multiple attempts to bring a follow-up to the screen over the decades, starting with the 1994 announcement of a sequel called Cliffhanger 2: The Dam, which would have seen Stallone reprising the role of Gabe Walker to fight terrorists who took control of the Hoover Dam. Producer Neal H. Moritz started developing a reboot in 2009 and hired Joe Gazzam to write a script in 2014. At some point, Fred Dekker wrote a script called Cliffhangers, but it was scrapped. Things really started picking up steam when Ana Lily Amirpour was hired to direct a female-led reinvention in 2019… and then, as mentioned, was a stretch of time in 2023 when it looked like Stallone was going to come back for a sequel that would have been directed by Ric Roman Waugh from a script by Mark Bianculli. The set-up, as described by Waugh: “Gabe Walker – he’s got a daughter, he’s got an heir apparent, pseudo son, and they have a mountaineering company, Italian Alps. Tragedy strikes that’s very similar to what happened in the original movie, so that father and daughter have to deal with that and how to overcome tragedy. How do we get through traumatic experiences and fight to move forward? It’s what extreme sports like climbing are all about. And of course, there might be some nefarious bad guys that show up in the Italian Alps, and all hell breaks loose.” Waugh eventually dropped out and was replaced by Jean-Francois Richet… then the whole thing crumbled.
Variety explains that Stallone was on board to work on the movie in the fall of 2023, before the second season of Tulsa King started filming. He wanted his fee to be put in escrow, guaranteed up front. But, a lawsuit filed by Moritz against the film’s financiers at Rocket Science Industries states that “Rocket Science failed to secure Stallone’s commitment to do the Picture because it refused to guarantee Stallone’s fee.” Moritz and his producing partner Toby Jaffe kept pushing the project forward and even cut together a sizzle reel with Stallone envisioned as the lead, which they then used to market the film to sales agents. But as time went on and Stallone’s involvement couldn’t be confirmed, Waugh backed out. Richet and a new writer, Melanie Toast, were brought in to get the project ready to roll – but when the start of production was pushed back into 2024, a scheduling conflict with Tulsa King and the lack of a fee guarantee caused Stallone to walk away.
Russell Crowe was considered as Stallone’s replacement, but Pierce Brosnan ended up taking on the role.
Reboot
So, Gabe Walker was written back out of the script and the project became a reboot again. The Cliffhanger reboot has made its way through production with director Jaume Collet-Serra at the helm, working from a script that’s credited to Ana Lily Amirpour, Sasha Penn, Mark Bianculli, and Melanie Toast. The synopsis lets us know that Ray Cooper is a seasoned mountaineer who runs a luxury chalet in the Dolomites with his daughter. When a weekend excursion with a billionaire’s son turns violent, they are targeted by a group of kidnappers. As the attack unfolds, Ray’s daughter, Naomi, still haunted by a tragic climbing accident, escapes into the mountains and must fight for survival against both nature and her pursuers. Basically, it’s the same story that the sequel would have been, but with “Gabe Walker” replaced by “Ray Cooper,” Pierce Brosnan standing in for Sylvester Stallone.
As mentioned, Moritz is currently suing financier Rocket Science Industries, claiming that they have “reneged on an agreement to pay him a $2.5 million producer fee. … In May 2024, Moritz and Jaffe were asked to defer all their producer fees. Rocket Science execs explained that they were experiencing budget problems, partly because the loss of Stallone meant lower guarantees for pre-sales in Spain, Latin America and Scandinavia, according to the complaint. The fees for the director and lead cast had come in higher than expected, and the lenders wanted the producers to hold back their fees as a condition of financing the project. The suit states that Moritz and Jaffe had already warned Rocket Science that they were paying too much for talent. Although the deferral of producer fees occasionally takes place in connection with making independent motion pictures, it is highly unusual for requests to be made to a producer of Moritz’s stature to defer the entirety of the producer’s fee. The problem with the deferral of producer fees is not just that the producer gets paid later than he or she was supposed to be paid, but deferral may result in the producer never getting the full agreed-upon fee or possibly not even any portion of the fee.“
What do you think of the issues behind the scenes on the new Cliffhanger movie, and the fact that they caused Sylvester Stallone to walk away? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.
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