Black Diamond suit against Cliffhanger movie

Allen Hill wrote:It was based on Long's "Angels of Light" which is about the plane that crashed in the Yosemite high country that was loaded with pot. That story is worthy of a thread in and of itself. Anyhow they replaced dope with money and dirtbag Camp Four climbers with a hero ranger. I worked on a very very early version of the script. It was my first job in the industry.

I wasn't reading carefully. Jeff Long is not a pen name for John Long. Jeff Long wrote the book. He lives in Boulder in fact. His book "The Ascent" is also fantastic. It's one of those mountaineering books that your significant other should not be allowed to read! Anyhow sorry for my lack of clarity.

Allen Hill wrote:I wasn't reading carefully. Jeff Long is not a pen name for John Long. Jeff Long wrote the book. He lives in Boulder in fact. His book "The Ascent" is also fantastic. It's one of those mountaineering books that your significant other should not be allowed to read! Anyhow sorry for my lack of clarity.

Largo has always tinkered or attempted to tinker in the film industry. He pitched the premise to someone, who, like they do in films, picked it up and made it into something completely different. Either Jeff Long (a really good writer BTW) or David Roberts later wrote a piece about the bewildering twists, turns, betrayals, etc., that went into the adaptation of his book.

Yvon Chouinard described the transition of Chouinard Equipment into Black Diamond in his autobiography, "Let My People Go Surfing." According to Yvon, the company was sued as a result of several non-climbing incidents, and then by the family of a lawyer who was killed in a climbing class. However, it was not the lawsuits themselves that put Chouinard Equipment into Chapter 11--the suits were settled (and presumbably paid for) by its insurance company. The subsequent increase in Chouinard Equipment's product liability insurance then precipitated Chouinard Equipment's bankruptcy filing.

The first book option was bought by Wind River Productions. Joe Ignot was the producer. That's when I was involved. It was to be a more literal adaptation of the book. What happen after that I don't know except that there where numerous other script options as the years passed.

This is a interesting thread! I'm learning a lot. Super fun.

Wolfgang Güllich did stunts for the movie also, and fatigue due to media obligations after the success of Cliffhanger has been implicated in his death... (falling asleep on the autobahn)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfg…üllich

There was an article in Climbing I believe and they interviewed the woman who took the fall. The only thing i remember was that she was pretty happy with the fact that she made enough money doing that job to go buy a new truck.

Jon Ruland wrote: does your mom know you're talking to strange men on the internet?

With regard to the viewpoint that Wolfgang died from "fatigue due to media obligations after the success of Cliffhanger has been implicated in his death... (falling asleep on the autobahn)"
Wolfgang died during the filming of Cliffhanger not after the success of Cliffhanger. Those of us on the film crew were notified of Wolfgang's death while we were still working in Cortina, Italy. He fell asleep at the wheel of his car after attending an outdoor trade show.

this thread delivers

oh mountain project, sarcasm at its finest.

Hmm... I still can't see the BD's logo on the harness, did I miss it? youtube.com/watch?v=XmPRZDy…

John Long wrote many mag articles and essays; one was related to the book efforts that were used as premise for film. He lived the actual dope-hunters events, or at least knew personally those who cashed in on the lost bales of MJane. As for the Chouinard business 'collapse', I recall Chouinard made the separation of Patagonia from the hardware company in order to protect the Patagonia assets from any frivilous gear lawsuits that GPIW/Chouinard/BD was having.

Bang wrote:Hmm... I still can't see the BD's logo on the harness, did I miss it?

I didn't know Chouinnard blew up due to liability. I have some old chouinnard gear, like carabiners and hexes. Should I stop using it?

kevin donald wrote:Those of us on the film crew were notified of Wolfgang's death while we were still working in Cortina, Italy. He fell asleep at the wheel of his car after attending an outdoor trade show.

Carsareweapons.

Got a chance to chat with Jeff Long about about the book, script and movie. Was still fairly chapped about the whole deal.

Buckle was made out of lead, I seem to recall. No question its a BD/Chouinard harness. Only style like that out there. Note that the buckle doesn't have that extra backup metal bit that's a pain in the arse.