Variety reports that Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike is in talks to appear in an upcoming “survival romance” story with Sons Of Anarchy lead Charlie Hunnam. The Mountain Between Us, adapted from Charles Martin’s novel, will see Pike and Hunnam as survivors of a plane crash who slowly fall in love while trying to stay alive in the mountainous wilds of Utah. Hunnam will play Dr. Ben Payne, an emotionally wounded surgeon and mountain climber afflicted with a terrible case of Soap Opera Doctor Name Disease. If she signs on, Pike will take on the role of Ashley Knox, described on the book’s website as “a successful, attractive writer,” who must successfully and attractively tend to Payne’s wounded soul as he tends to her injuries from the crash. With compasses rendered unusable by the couple’s raw personal magnetism, the pair (and their requisite dog) will have to brave the harsh Utah winter on their own, with nothing but smoldering sexual tension to keep them warm.
Reading over the book’s synopsis, questions about the Hany Abu-Assad-helmed adaptation abound: Will Ben overcome the potentially deadly case of Nicholas Sparks-itis that compels him to constantly leave voice messages for his estranged wife on his handheld voice recorder? If the pair survives, will Ashley choose to stay with Ben, or return to her waiting fiancé, ably played by whoever’s filling in for Bills Paxton or Pullman these days? Can Charlie Hunnam survive in the wilderness with nature’s most dangerous predator—a survival-minded Rosamund Pike? We’ll know more when The Mountain Between Us begins filming late next year.