It’s been a big few weeks for ’90s cinema, with a pair of reboots and a long-awaited sequel all receiving status updates over the last few days. Along with things moving along for a Stargate reboot and an Independence Day sequel, a reboot of the 1993 mountain-climbing adventure Cliffhanger is also progressing with a new writer.
Screenwriter Joe Gazzam will pen the script for the Cliffhanger reboot, reports Deadline, with Neal Moritz (The Fast and the Furious, 21 Jump Street) producing the film. The original movie cast Sylvester Stallone as a traumatized mountain-rescue specialist who’s called back into service when an airplane full of stolen money and vicious criminals crashes on a dangerous mountain range. The film was directed by Renny Harlin, who also directed Die Hard 2 and Deep Blue Sea, and most recently directed The Legend of Hercules.
Gazzam is a relatively unknown commodity at this point, with only a script for an action thriller titled Shadow Run picked up earlier this year. (Sadly, the film has nothing to do with the cyberpunk game franchise of the same name.)
Little is known about Gazzam’s plans for the reboot, but his script was one of several pitched for the project, which has been in the works since the rights were snatched up in 2010. There’s no word on a possible director for the reboot at this point, thought the studio is reportedly fast-tracking the project — and therefore, the search for a director — in order to get the film into theaters as soon as possible.
The desire to move the project along could be due to the fact that the Cliffhanger reboot might be one of several mountain-climbing movies to hit theaters over the next few years, with a pair of films based on climbers attempting to scale Mt. Everest currently in the works at both Sony Pictures — where the Cliffhanger reboot is also likely to go — and Universal Pictures.
