Demolition Man producer Joel Silver once pitched a sequel concept where Meryl Streep would have played Sylvester Stallone’s daughter. Demolition Man was an action comedy that pitted Stallone’s relentless cop against Wesley Snipes’ insane villain, with the two enemies being frozen and thawed out in a utopian future. The movie was a big hit upon release in 1993, mixing great action setpieces with surprisingly witty satire.
The script for Demolition Man floated around Hollywood for years prior to being made, with everybody from Arnold Schwarzenegger to Jean-Claude Van Damme and Jackie Chan being considered. The movie recently celebrated its 25th anniversary, with Taco Bell – who appear prominently in the movie as the only food chain to survive the ‘franchise wars’ - marking the occasion by recreating the classy restaurant seen in the movie at the San Diego Comic-Con.
A deleted subplot from Demolition Man finds Stallone’s character John Spartan tracking down his daughter, who – thanks to the decades he spent in cryosleep – is now older than he is. This story thread was taken out in editing but co-writer Daniel Waters revealed on The Production Booth podcast that producer Joel Silver wanted to revisit this idea for a potential sequel.
A sequel to Demolition Man didn’t ultimately happen, but one that would have teamed Stallone with Meryl Streep would have been interesting. Streep isn’t exactly known for appearing in action or genre movies either, so it would have been a real change of pace for the acclaimed actress. That said, it seems like Silver was spitballing ideas in the wake of the movie’s success, so it’s hard to say how just how serious he treated the notion.
I get a call from Joel. ‘What do you think of this? Meryl Streep is Stallone’s daughter for the sequel. What do you think?’ I’m like ‘Ok, you get Meryl on the set and I’ll come out.’
Waters also revealed a big reason Demolition Man’s daughter subplot was removed was because test audiences assumed Sandra Bullock’s follow detective would be revealed to be his daughter – until their virtual reality sex scene arrived and grossed them out. Thus, they decided to minimise the idea as much as possible. Another deleted concept saw Stallone and Snipes rapidly aging as the story progressed, with the three decades they were frozen catching up with them. This idea was removed during rewrites due to the heavy prosthetics it would require.
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Source: The Projection Booth
