Danny Boyle, the director of the Oscar favorite Slumdog Millionaire, has found his next project: 127 Hours. The movie is going to be about climber Aron Ralston's excruciating 2003 trip in Utah that resulted in his right forearm getting crushed by a boulder, requiring him to self-amputate with a dull knife. Sounds like a Saw sequel!
Variety tells us this about the project:
Boyle has written a treatment, and Simon Beaufoy is in talks to write the script, and Christian Colson will produce.
...Ralston's right forearm got pinned for nearly five days under a boulder during a climb in Utah in May 2003. He used a dull knife to amputate the limb, then scaled a 65-foot sheer wall and hiked out before running into a family that gave him water and food. He was finally rescued by helicopter.
There's an unconfirmed rumor that Ryan Gosling is going to play Ralston, though there's no solid casting news at this point. Whoever winds up playing the brave climber is going to have one of the more grisly scenes in recent cinema ahead of him. Fox Searchlight is the studio behind this film.
While Ralston's story is inspiring, terrifying, and ultimately heroic, it's difficult to imagine it being adapted to the screen. After all, you've got one guy pinned by a boulder, basically working up the courage for five days to cut off his own arm with a dull knife. Not a lot of room for character arc.
Or is there? Boyle has proven himself adept at different genres and formats, so if anyone can tackle this subject it's probably him. This kind of sounds like it's going to be an even more gut-churning version of the 2002 Gus Van Sant film Gerry, where two guys get lost in the desert and one winds up strangling the other out of mercy.
In other words, don't expect 127 Hours to be a real upper.
Source: Mark Ralston/Getty Images
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