Josh Brolin and Jake Gyllenhaal head towards Everest

Jason Clarke and John Hawkes are also in talks to take part in a new drama on the legendary Himalayan mountain, according to reports from Deadline.com.

Jason Clarke and John Hawkes are also in talks to take part in a new drama on the legendary Himalayan mountain, according to reports from Deadline.com. The four actors are in the running to portray members of an ill-fated expedition team in the film, which bears the solemn and simple title Everest.

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur (2 Guns) will direct the feature film based on Jon Krakauer's best-selling work Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mt. Everest Disaster. Moviegoers will be confronted with the nightmare ordeal faced by several teams of mountaineers who were trapped by a storm in 1996. Only eight of them survived the tragedy, and blame for the loss falls in large part on the oversight of local authorities.

Universal Studios plans to begin shooting next November. Meanwhile, rival studio Sony Pictures is working on a project with a similar time frame, also to be titled Everest. This time, the script focuses on the tragic destiny of George Mallory. Tom Hardy is set to portray the famous British explorer, who attempted to climb the mountain in 1924. When his body was found in 1999, it was impossible to tell whether he had succeeded in reaching the top.