Dark Knight Rises star Christian Bale is in talks to star in a mountain climbing disaster film called Everest for Universal Pictures and Working Title. The movie is set to be directed by Baltasar Kormakur (The Deep, Contraband).
According to Deadline the story is based on the true story of the "1996 disastrous expedition to scale Mount Everest. Three different expeditions were hit by a sudden blinding storm and by the time it was all over, eight climbers died. The tale was first made famous by Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air, his first-person account of being among the lucky ones to make it back down the mountain. This film will be sourced from various books and interviews with survivors."
This is sure to be an intense movie, and Bale is the perfect actor to take it on. I recently saw a documentary up at Sundance called The Summit, which kind of scared the hell out of me. You'll never see me trying to climb any of the world's tallest mountains.
This is actually the second Everest movie currently being developed in Hollywood right now. Sony Pictures is currently working on a 1920s period film in which Tom Hardy will play Sir George Mallory who wanted to be the first to climb the top of Everest. That movie is being directed by Doug Liman.