Finding the right script and cast has been something of a challenge for drama The Mountain Between Us. Actors and writers have come and gone, but now, with Chris Weitz providing the screenplay, the movie might finally have found a leading man in Idris Elba.
Weitz's script adapts Charles Martin’s eponymous novel, which finds two strangers surviving a plane crash in the Colorado woods and braving the elements together. The experience draws them closer and they fall in love. Elba, assuming he takes the role, would be Ben Trace, a doctor and climbing fanatic who helps injured writer Ashley as they make their way down a mountain in unforgiving weather.
Paradise Now’s Hany Abu-Assad remains in the director's chair for the drama, which has seen the likes of Michael Fassbender, Margot Robbie, Charlie Hunnam and Rosamund Pike all pondering and then passing on the main roles.
Elba's a busy man as ever. He just picked up two SAG Awards for his work on Beasts Of No Nation and Luther and has several films coming up including The Jungle Book (in which he voices Shere Khan, Zootropolis, where he's Police Chief Bogo and Star Trek Beyond, which has him as an antagonist named Krall.