A Mountain Looms in the Distance

In May 1996, eight climbers died on the harsh slopes of Mt. Everest when a ferocious storm blew in without warning. The events captivated the world in numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and several books, most notably Jon Krakauer’s best-selling “Into Thin Air.”

All that coverage, and still no Hollywood blockbuster. Given the drama and magnitude of the Everest disaster--the worst in the mountain’s history--that’s somewhat surprising.

Along comes Columbia Pictures’ “Vertical Limit,” a fictionalized tale about a mountain-climbing expedition that is ravaged by a vicious blizzard near the top of K2, the world’s second-highest peak. In the movie, which hits theaters Friday, climber Peter Garrett (Chris O’Donnell) must trek his way up K2 to rescue his sister, Annie (Robin Tunney), and two of her teammates (Bill Paxton, Nicholas Lea), who are trapped in a crevasse.

Although the filmmakers take pains to point out that their story is fictitious, “Vertical Limit” contains some striking connections to the incidents on Everest and may be the closest moviegoers will get to seeing the dangers and emotions of that calamitous climb.

To date, “Into Thin Air,” Krakauer’s first-person account of the disastrous Everest expedition, has been the most popular version of what took place up there in 1996, selling more than 4 million copies in hardcover and paperback. It was adapted for a TV movie, which aired on ABC in 1997, about six months after the book’s publication, but it has not been sold to a movie studio for feature-length treatment, according to Marty Shapiro, Krakauer’s film representative.

In his book and in subsequent interviews, Krakauer described the survivor’s guilt he felt after his experience on Everest. Whether that has affected his desire to see “Into Thin Air” turned into a big-screen movie is unclear. Krakauer no longer gives press interviews, said John Ware, his literary agent.

In 1997, Universal was gearing up to shoot its own version of the Everest disaster, based on an article that appeared in Men’s Journal and the stories of two survivors. Roger Donaldson (“Dante’s Peak,” the upcoming “Thirteen Days”) was attached to direct, and “Vertical Limit” producer Lloyd Phillips was involved in the development. Universal eventually scuttled the project.

Planning of One Movie Aids Planning of Another

Meanwhile, Columbia had been trying for years to produce “Vertical Limit” from a script written by Robert King (“Red Corner,” “Cutthroat Island”). In early 1999, the studio hired director Martin Campbell (“The Mask of Zorro”), and soon after Phillips, who brought with him nearly a year’s experience of planning the mountain-climbing movie at Universal.

Campbell said that dealing with fictional events in “Vertical Limit” rather than reality enabled him to make a more exciting movie. “If I were directing ‘Into Thin Air,’ then we would have to make it 100 percent realistic,” Campbell said. “I’m not here to make an absolutely, by-the-book mountain-climbing movie. The point of this exercise is to give the audience a two-hour thrill ride, to really get the adrenaline pumping.”

The setting for the film’s plot is K2, a mountain that, despite being at a lower altitude than Everest in the Himalayas, is a much more dangerous ascent. Since it would have been impossible to haul cameras and crew up K2, the producers used Mt. Cook in the southern Alps of New Zealand as a stand-in.

Providing technical advice and mountain safety for the production were several world-class mountaineers, including Ed Viesturs and Guy Cotter, both of whom are Everest veterans. Viesturs, who has a cameo role in the movie, actually helped rescue some of the stranded climbers on Everest in 1996.

Screenwriter King also consulted David Breashears, co-director of the 1998 Imax documentary “Everest” and an accomplished climber in his own right, to ensure the movie didn’t stray too far from reality. For example, an earlier version of the screenplay called for O’Donnell’s character to be swept away by an avalanche but somehow manage to survive. King said that scene was nixed by Breashears as being excessively unrealistic.

“Since ‘Into Thin Air,’ people have become very aware of what mountain climbing can do to climbers, so we didn’t want to push the envelope too much,” King said. “Breashears was very instrumental in helping us pull back.”

Even so, the makers of “Vertical Limit” had to take liberties to keep the action rolling at a breakneck pace, for example, downplaying how difficult it is to walk and even breathe at 26,000 feet. “In our story, we couldn’t have people moving that slowly,” said Campbell, the movie’s director. “Otherwise the whole thing would grind to a halt.”

One of the debates sparked by the ’96 Everest disaster focused on the increasing commercialization of treks to the world’s highest peaks. In particular, critics denounced the fact that rich people were buying their way up the mountain on guided tours for which porters carried the bulk of supplies and equipment, and experienced climbers were on hand to virtually drag some customers to the summit.

Those elements found their way into the “Vertical Limit” story line in the character of Elliot Vaughn (Paxton), a wealthy, self-centered entrepreneur who develops a murderous streak when he is marooned on high. Vaughn was not in the first version of the screenplay, which was written and sold before the tragedy on Everest, King said. “In the original story, the mountain was the bad guy.”

A Heartbreaking Call Lingers in People’s Minds

The most affecting episode of the real-life Everest catastrophe was a satellite phone call from Rob Hall, an expedition leader who was trapped near the summit, to his pregnant wife, Jan Arnold, at their home in Christchurch, New Zealand. Exposed to icy cold made more bitter by howling winds, lacking oxygen and the strength to descend on his own, Hall was near death when he said goodbye.

As recounted in Krakauer’s book, Hall’s last words to his wife were, “I love you. Sleep well, my sweetheart. Please don’t worry too much.”

That phone call, said “Vertical Limit” producer Phillips, was what distinguished the tragic events on Everest from others that had occurred in the past.

“There was a terrible disaster on K2 a few years ago, but it’s not on the popular psyche as much as the disaster on Everest,” Phillips said. “That one moment captured the world’s attention, because it was heartbreaking but it also put into context where you are--a man on the roof of the world completely incapable of getting down, talking with technology to someone at home.”

There’s a scene in “Vertical Limit” that echoes Hall’s phone call. As Peter closes in on the crevasse where his sister is trapped, she pleads with him on a walkie-talkie to turn back. The siblings talk softly for a while, tears flow, and then Annie signs off, “Good night, Peter. I love you.” (The phone call was also reportedly the climactic moment of Universal’s “Everest” project.)

“This is a very human story about a rescue attempt,” Phillips said. “Of course, we surround it with action, and of course we Hollywood-ize. But the spirit of that moment on Everest is something that really imbues our movie.”

Phillips said he hopes “Vertical Limit” will inspire someone to make a feature about the Everest disaster. “Theirs is a serious drama with real incidents on a real mountain.”