Out of the copious amounts of popcorn flicks that I experienced in my youth, Cliffhanger manages to stand head and shoulders above the rest of the pack for several reasons. Firstly, it never gets old watching an at-his-peak Sylvester Stallone kick ass and take names. Secondly, you can always count on John Lithgow to play an amazing bad guy (see also: 1991’s Ricochet as proof of this). And last but not least, the perilous setting of the Colorado Rockies wilderness is equally memorable as it is bone-chilling.
As is the case with a lot of successful and nostalgic movies from the last few decades, Hollywood has deemed it necessary to move forward with a reboot of Renny Harlin’s 1993 classic. Specifically, critically acclaimed director Ana Lily Amirpour (A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night) has recently been confirmed to helm the upcoming project.
The Cliffhanger reboot will be produced by Neal Moritz (of The Fast And The Furious fame) and is being written by Sascha Penn (Creed II). It will allegedly feature a female-led cast as well, with ongoing talks with Jason Momoa (Game Of Thrones, Aquaman) to star in a cameo role.
Here’s what Lily Amirpour had to say about the upcoming reboot:
I am very excited to partner with Original Films and Rocket Science, who share my passion for the character-driven high-adrenalin survival movie; one of my favorite genres. We are setting out to create a thrill-ride on the mountain which taps into the primal side of an action movie, where you see what a person is capable of doing to survive in the most extreme situations, pushed to the limits. Add to that some high-stakes espionage and a badass female mountain climber as the lead and it becomes a truly epic reinvention of what made the original Cliffhanger movie so fun and so thrilling.
Producer of the reboot, Neal Moritz, also added:
I’ve been wanting to re-make this adrenaline-filled survival thriller with a strong female protagonist – both in front of and behind the camera – for some time. The elements came together with Ana Lily and Rocket Science. We look forward to gathering the rest of the pieces. I’ve always wanted to make the movies I want to see — big at their core with characters which connect to the audience while simultaneously encouraging them to leave their house and go to a theater. Cliffhanger is just that. In what we hope will be the first of an entirely new franchise.
So, it’s sounding likely that the filmmakers are focused on laying down the foundations for an entirely new Cliffhanger franchise. It doesn’t exactly fill us with hope, then, but it’ll be interesting to see how the reboot turns out nonetheless.
But how about you? Tell us, are you down to return to the Colorado Rockies in a brand new Cliffhanger pic? Let us know in the usual place.