A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) was a life-changing event for The Strangers: Chapter 1’s director, Renny Harlin. Robert Shaye of New Line Cinema took a chance on young Harlin when the producer hired the virtually unknown Finnish filmmaker for Nightmare 4. Flash forward five years, and Harlin is helming Cliffhanger starring Sylvester Stallone. And during an exclusive interview with MovieWeb, Harlin was asked if he had any advice for the team behind the upcoming Cliffhanger sequel, which Ric Roman Waugh is attached to as director. Harlin said:

“I think it’s a sequel to Cliffhanger.
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.”

Harlin (Die Hard 2, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Deep Blue Sea) continued:

“So, for their own sake,
I hope they are given the money and resources to
go on location and shoot it for real,

because I think, for the spirit of that movie, it’s important to feel that reality.
And if it’s done digitally, no matter how well it’s done, I feel like the audience can smell it.”

Cliffhanger 2: ‘All Hell Breaks Loose in the Italian Alps’

Sylvester Stallone will return as Gabe Walker in Cliffhanger’s sequel. And while Renny Harlin won’t be sitting in the director’s chair again, the action drama has ended up in the capable hands of Ric Roman Waugh (Snitch, Angel Has Fallen, Greenland, Kandahar). Waugh’s vision for Cliffhanger 2 will feature the “evolution” of Gabe Walker, much in the same way that the lead character of Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) was portrayed in Top Gun: Maverick. Waugh made the revelation last May while speaking with Screen Rant:

“I’m going to do the next evolution of Cliffhanger with Stallone
, and watch his character evolve forward. And he has a daughter now who’s a mountaineering climber, as well.
And all hell breaks loose in the Italian Alps
— and here we go.
But it’s the evolution of [Cliffhanger] the way Top Gun: Maverick carried forward the story of the original movie;
how Creed became the evolution of a franchise of Rocky into something new.

That’s kind of what we’re after on Cliffhanger,
so that’s fun. It’s fun to be part of a new fresh start, or the evolution of something like that. But, one is a continuation of a story that means a lot to me.
And the other one is going to be fun to hopefully evolve something in a really cool and meaningful way.”

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While Stallone and Waugh move forward with the Cliffhanger sequel, Renny Harlin is busy with The Strangers’ trilogy that has begun with Chapter 1. Harlin’s new horror flick is opening up against several movies this weekend, including IF,The Blue Angels (IMAX) and Back to Black. And while two more Strangers entries are planned, Chapter 1 is being lambasted by the critics. At the time of this writing, Chapter 1 registers only 13% on the Tomatometer! The scary flick’s Rotten Tomatoes score of 41% is better, but nothing worth writing home about — to say nothing of its “C” CinemaScore.