Sylvester Stallone is gearing up to revisit one of his best action movies – 1993’s Cliffhanger. A sequel is in the works, 30 years later. In an interview with The Radio Times, Stallone said that only certain kinds of films – mainly from the ’80s and ’90s – hold up and work for legacy sequels. He added that trying to revisit or remake the auteur films of the ’70s wouldn’t work.
“It’s, you know, it’s interesting. You look back on films, and very few hold up, because usually they’re made with the kind of technology and mentality of the times like the ’80s, you can see it.”
“Like, if you were to make The Godfather today it wouldn’t work. You couldn’t – those actors don’t exist. I mean, it’s a different style.” The Godfather was made with mainly New York based theatre actors, such as Al Pacino and Diane Keaton. Pacino and Robert De Niro both attended the Actors Studio in New York, which is strongly associated with method acting. Stallone and De Niro worked together in the brilliant Cop Land (1997).
Stallone continued; “Now Cliffhanger, like [science fiction movie] Demolition Man (1994), holds up, so I’m looking forward to it [the sequel]. Of course, I’m not hanging from as many peaks as I’d like. Thank God, but I’m the father of my children, my offspring. They’re the ones that carry on the torch. And the script was fantastic. I was actually truly impressed. It’s very hard (I mean, I read it all) to be impressed.”
Stallone has recently turned to making TV series for the first time, with Tulsa King and the reality show The Family Stallone. Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather has a new film coming up for the first time since 2011. It’s called Megalopolis and stars Adam Driver, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne and Forest Whitaker.
Check out our guide to the best 80s movies and the best 90s movies, to see where the next legacy sequel might be found.