Given all the films about it, you’d think Mount Everest was something special, like the tallest mountain in the world, or summat. Sorry, summit. At least one project is in the works and a new one from Working Title and Universal makes two, with Christian Bale attached to star. Justin Isbell wrote the latest draft of Everest, which focuses on a disastrous 1996 expedition to scale the mountain. Three different groups of climbers were struck by a monstrous, blinding storm and eight of them ended up dead. Originally chronicled by Jon Krakauer’s bestseller Into Thin Air (itself turned into a TV movie in 1997), the new film has been sourced from interviews and books by survivors. Contraband man Baltasar Kormakur (who knows cold conditions after shooting Icelandic true-life shipwreck tale The Deep) is stepping into his director’s climbing gear for the movie, which also has Emmet/Furla Films involved. It’ll be competing with another Everest, which Sony is working up from Jeffrey Archer’s book for Sheldon Turner to direct, based on Jeffrey Archer’s book Paths Of Glory. That one has Tom Hardy attached to star as George Mallory, who died on his third attempt to conquer the unforgiving rock (already covered in 2010 documentary The Wildest Dream). Now all we can picture are Bale and Hardy scrapping like Bane and Batman when they both turn up at the same time on research trips… | 
