Paths of Glory up Everest

Sony is in final discussions to pick up a pitch from screenwriter Sheldon Turner that would see him adapting Jeffrey Archer’s historical novel, Paths of Glory, about the mystery surrounding George Mallory’s 1924 ascent, into a feature according to THR.

Mallory’s legacy involves the possibility that he — and not Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953 — was the first man to reach the summit of the Nepalese peak. Mallory made several attempts, and competed with Australian climber George Finch, who first used oxygen, but he and his partner Andrew Irvine never returned from their June 1924 climb.

In 1999, Mallory’s frozen body was found near the summit on the North Face, and debate has raged ever since about whether he was actually on his way down or up.

Archer’s novel was published in February by St. Martin’s Press.