The crew working on location for the
and Walden Media film “
” is safe from its position at base camp after a deadly avalanche swept down a climbing route on the Nepalese mountain.
The nine members of the second-unit crew, which consists of professional hikers and cameramen, will remain on schedule to continue acclimating, with plans to summit the mountain early next month. May is peak climbing season, when
weather conditions are at their most favorable.
“We just got word that everyone is fine,” Tyler Thompson, a co-founder of Cross Creek, told
Variety
, “and we are looking to set up some kind of donation to help out some of the affected (Nepalese) families.”
The avalanche killed 12 Nepalese guides around 6:30 a.m. local time and has left four missing in the deadliest disaster on the world’s highest peak. Several more people sustained injuries.
Previously, the worst recorded disaster on Everest was a fierce blizzard on May 11, 1996, which caused the deaths of eight climbers, including famous mountaineer Rob Hall, who was later memorialized in the Jon Krakauer book “Into Thin Air.”
“Everest,” which will be released by Universal on Sept. 18, 2015, details that disaster and stars
, John Hawkes, Emily Watson and
. Working Title is also co-producing with
Baltasar Kormakur directing
.
Jason Clarke, Clive Standen and Martin Henderson also star.
Principal photography on “Everest” is still on schedule in London. The majority of the mountain scenes have already been shot in the Alps, but Cross Creek and Walden had set aside $1 million from the $65 million production budget for a team to shoot additional summit and location shots on the actual mountain.
2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
