Hollywood Making Major Everest Film

The company behind hits like Bridget Jones' Diary, Four Weddings and a Funeral, The Big Lebowski and Notting Hill is producing a major film about the 1996 Everest disaster described in Jon Krakauer's best seller, into thin air.

Director Stephen Daldry - think Billy Elliot - has just visited the mountain on a reconnaisance trip climbing as high as the Khumbu Ice Fall, which he reportedly found incredibly hard. In an article in the Telegraph, he's quoted as saying that ""I was astonished how hard it was and my admiration for those who climb has deepened immeasurably."

Friends apparently describe him as an 'Everest Nut' and he felt that visiting the mountain was the only way of getting an idea of what things were like on Everest. He's no climber however, and the lack of oxygen and scale of the mountain astonished him.

Daldry directed Billy Elliot and The Hours as well as numerous stage plays, but is concentrating on the new Everest project. Working with him are American mountaineers David Breashears and Ed Viesturs who were filming the IMAX Everest movie in 1996 when the disaster, which killed eight people happened.

The pair are currently filming background images for the film on the mountain and, according to the Telegraph, are planning to film dawn from the summit. While Daldry acknowledges that the actors cast for the film will have to be 'super-fit', there's no chance of them actually filming on Everest itself. Instead it seems likely that the production will follow the lead of other mountaineering films, such as Touching The Void (the Alps) or Vertical Limit (Andes) and use more accessible mountain locations.

The Universal Pictures film's due to be released in 2006 and has a colossal £56 million budget. More detail on the Telegraph web site. See also the incredibly irritating Working Title web site and this story on the Outside web site.