Michael Fassbender is in talks to headline Gerardo Naranjo’s (Miss Bala) next film, The Mountain Between Us, Variety reports. Based on the 2010 novel by Charles Martin, the book is officially described as follows:
On a stormy winter night, two strangers wait for a flight at the Salt Lake City airport. Ashley Knox is an attractive, successful writer, who is flying 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 the last outgoing flight is cancelled due to a broken de-icer and a forthcoming storm, Ben finds a charter plane that can take him around the storm and drop him in Denver to catch a connection. And when the pilot says the single engine prop plane can fit one more, if barely, Ben offers the seat to Ashley knowing that she needs to get back just as urgently. And then the unthinkable happens. The pilot has a heart attack mid-flight and the plane crashes into the High Uintas Wilderness– one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States.
Ben, who has broken ribs and Ashley, who suffers a terrible leg fracture, along with the pilots dog, are faced with an incredibly harrowing battle to survive. Fortunately, Ben is a medical professional and avid climber (and in a lucky break, has his gear from a climb earlier in the week). With little hope for rescue, he must nurse Ashley back to health and figure out how they are going to get off the mountain, where the temperature hovers in the teens. Meanwhile, Ashley soon realizes that the very private Ben has some serious emotional wounds to heal as well. He explains to Ashley that he is separated from his beloved wife, but in a long standing tradition, he faithfully records messages for her on his voice recorder reflecting on their love affair. As Ashley eavesdrops on Bens tender words to his estranged wife she comes to fear that when it comes to her own love story, shes just settling. And whats more: she begins to realize that the man she is really attracted to, the man she may love, is Ben.
As the days on the mountains become weeks, their survival becomes increasingly perilous. How will they make it out of the wilderness and if they do, how will this experience change them forever?
Fassbender, who would take the Ben role, is coming off a busy 2011 and already appeared in this year’s Haywire. He can soon be seen on the big screen again in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus and is expected to re-team with his Hunger and Shame director, Steve McQueen, for 12 Years a Slave. He’s also expected to reprise his role as Magneto in an upcoming sequel to last year’s X-Men: First Class and also to work again with Scott on the Cormac McCarthy-scripted The Counselor.
(Photo Credit: Ian Wilson/WENN.com)
