Tom Hardy is set to board Doug Liman’s Everest

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

After Doug Liman is finished up with Tom Cruise on ALL YOU NEED IS KILL, he will move on to the story of George Mallory for EVEREST.

Tom Hardy is in talks to play Mallory, a man who in the 1930s tried to get to the top of Everest only to meet his end.

The adaptation from Sheldon Turner (UP IN THE AIR) is pulled from Jeffrey Archer’s novel, Paths of Glory. Here is some background: “At the time, Great Britain had been decimated by WWI, poverty and angst was rampant and the nation craved a hero. Mallory tried hard to fill that bill, even though he was caught short in his first two attempts to summit the mountain, in 1921 and 1922. A devoted husband and father, he was torn between adventure and the simple fact his family wanted him with them. He refused to use oxygen to aid him in high altitude in thin air the first two times. On the final climb, he and climbing partner Sandy Irvine used the oxygen and were last glimpsed in 1924 as they made their final assault near the top. They disappeared into the clouds and Mallory wasn’t seen again until they were discovered by climber Mark Ankner in 1999. That the discovery in 1999 was the basis for the rather incredible Anthony Geffen-directed docu The Wildest Dream. The big question is whether Mallory died after he completed the unprecedented summit. Some feel he became the first man to climb the mountain: Mallory took with him a photo of his wife, which he had vowed to place atop Everest. It was not found in his possessions.