Deadline is reporting that Dermot Mulroney, star of Shameless and Insidious: Chapter 3, has inked a deal to scale The Mountain Between Us, Hany Abu-Assad’s gripping drama of romance and survival that’s set up shop at Fox 2000.
Adapted from Charles Martin’s eponymous bestseller, Mulroney now joins Idris Elba and Kate Winslet, who climbed on board to assume the roles once earmarked for Charlie Hunnam and Gone Girl‘s Rosamund Pike. Going back further still, Michael Fassbender and Margot Robbie were also among those circling The Mountain Between Us during its formative years in pre-production, but with a preliminary cast finally locked in, Fox 2000 will begin making the final preparations for launch.
Peter Chernin and Jenno Topping will produce on behalf of Chernin Entertainment, with the synopsis from Martin’s page-turner teasing the unlikely romance that blossoms between a surgeon (Elba) and a writer (Winslet), after their charter plane plunges into the icy High Uintas Wilderness – one of the largest stretches of harsh and remote land in the United States.
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 canceled 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. The pilot has a heart attack mid-flight and the plane crashes into the High Uintas Wilderness.
Though J. Mills Goodloe and Scott Frank both turned in early drafts, The Mountain Between Us screenplay hails from screenwriter Chris Weitz. An October 20th release date is in place, meaning it shouldn’t be too much longer before we catch a glimpse of Abu-Assad’s adaptation in action.