“Warrior” director Gavin O’Connor is on board action-adventure “Massacre in the Himalayas.”
Gianni Nunnari’s Hollywood Gang Productions has acquired the movie rights to Freddie Wilkinson’s story for “Men’s Journal,” which follows an international team of world-class mountain climbers who are intent on conquering the K2 summit in Pakistan, and are plunged into a grueling journey when attacked by a group of extremists.
The article appeared in the August 2013 issue and recounted how terrorists killed 10 climbers and the local Pakistani cook.
O’Connor, whose credits include Natalie Portaman’s upcoming “Jane Got a Gun” and “Miracle,” will direct a fictionalized version of the story and produce alongside Nunnari. HGP’s Shannon Gaulding will be an exec producer.
Producers are seeking a screenwriter.
“I love the idea of using the colossal backdrop of K2, the second highest peak on earth, to explore a man’s battle for survival against the Taliban, nature, and himself,” says Gavin O’Connor. “Our hero becomes a one-man army on a quest to avenge the deaths of his mountaineering team. His experience becomes a living nightmare, a lifetime journey, and a redefinition of the man.”
Nunnari’s credits include “300,” “300: Rise of an Empire” and “Immortals.”
“‘Massacre In The Himalayas’ is a Hollywood Gang kind of movie,” he said. “It’s hard-hitting and it’s about extreme men in extreme circumstance. And Gavin is our perfect filmmaker; no one else brings his level of intensity or creates his kind of nuanced characters.”
Wilkinson’s agent, Ian Kleinert of Objective Entertainment, brokered the deal with Gaulding and Greg Slewett of Bloom Hergott Diemer Rosenthal LaViolette Feldman Schenkman & Goodman on behalf of Hollywood Gang.
O’Connor is repped by WME.
