Tom Hardy will need to get handy with a pick axe.
Deadline brings word that Tom Hardy has agreed to star in “Everest.” Doug Liman is directing the story about George Mallory, the English climber who made several attempts to become the first known person to reach the summit of Mount Everest in the early 1920s. His last attempt, in 1924 with Andrew Irvine, ended in mystery. Sheldon Turner adapted the script from Jeffrey Archer’s book “Paths of Glory.”
The two were last seen alive at about the 26,000 foot mark, but never returned; Mallory’s body was discovered in 1999, but Irvine’s has not been recovered, as far as anyone knows. It’s also unclear whether Mallory and Irvine died while still climbing up, or whether they were indeed the first to make it to the summit and were killed on their way down. Most mountain climbing experts consider the latter point moot–a full climb means making it back down again. Nevertheless, Mallory’s exploits provided some cheer for Britain in the post World War I, and if you consider the type of equipment he was working with compared to what people bring now to scale Everest, it’s quite a feat.
According to Deadline, Liman is himself a serious mountain climber, so this is a perfect project for him, and the intense Hardy seems like an ideal match for the role. Hardy was seen earlier this year in “The Dark Knight Rises” and his “Lawless” is still in theaters. He also was in “This Means War” but probably would prefer that we didn’t dwell on that . He is currently filming the title role in “Mad Max: Fury Road” (meaning Mad Max, not Fury Road).
