Replacing Gerardo Naranjo behind the camera…
Deadline has learned that Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (‘Paradise Now,’ ‘The Courier’) has entered into talks to take the director’s chair for ‘The Mountain Between Us,’ an adaptation of Charles Martin’s 2010 novel of the same name.
A harrowing tale of survival and a love story, ‘The Mountain Between’ us follows Ashley Knox, a writer catching a flight from Salt Lake City and heading East for her much anticipated wedding. Dr. Ben Payne has just wrapped up a medical conference and is also eager to return home to Jacksonville, FL for a slate of surgeries he has scheduled for the following day. When their flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer, the strangers agree to charter a ride, only to see the pilot of the single engine prop plane suffer a heart attack and crash into a desolate snowy mountain region.
Ben, who has broken ribs and Ashley, who suffers a terrible leg fracture, along with the pilot’s dog, are faced with an incredibly harrowing battle to survive. Fortunately, aside from a doctor he’s an avid climber, and as he struggles to get her down from the mountain in harsh weather, she begins to realize that maybe she was headed to marry the wrong guy.”
The adaptation features an adapted script by J. Mills Goodloe, with rewrites from Scott Frank. Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping and Dylan Clark of Chernin Entertainment will produce.
We first heard about the project back in March of last year when it was reported that Michael Fassbender (‘Prometheus,’ ‘X-Men: First Class’) was being lined up for the male lead under the direction of ‘Miss Bala’ helmer Gerardo Naranjo. There is no word if Fassbender is still linked to adaptation.