Thanks a lot, Meryl Streep, for ruining the Demolition Man sequel
In the annals of action cinema from the ’90s, you’ll find a bevy of kinetic marvels that can still dazzle today. You’ll also find the 1993 movie Demolition Man. You will not, however, find a sequel to that deeply stupid but weirdly enjoyable film. And for that, it seems, we might have Meryl Streep to thank—or not thank, as the case may be.
Look, no one was hankering for a sequel to one of Sylvester Stallone’s dumber sci-fi action-comedies. But we would have been, had we only known what Joel Silver had in mind for it. On a recent episode of the Projection Booth podcast, one of the film’s many co-writers, Daniel Waters, revealed the producer’s idea for a second installment in the adventures of a thawed-out supercop. The original film apparently had a subplot that was eventually cut, in which Stallone’s John Spartan reconnects with his daughter—who is now older than he is, thanks to the intervening years. Silver took that idea and ran with it, according to Waters: