James Franco is an actor who doesn’t mind challenging himself, and he’s certainly going to do that with the mountaineering drama 127 Hours.
Variety reports that the Spider-man actor has signed up to star in Danny Boyle’s next film, which is about Mark Ralston, who went out mountain climbing but got his right arm trapped under a boulder in Utah in 2003. He spent five days trying to extricate himself, before running out of water, trying to drink his own urine and videotaping goodbyes to his family.
He then realised there was only one way to survive and so he did the unthinkable. Using a dull blade and some pliers that were part of a cheap multi-use tool he had with him, he chopped chop his own arm off, before rappeling down a 65ft sheer cliff and hiking out of the canyon.
This means that not only will the film be Franco alone on camera for most of the running time, but he’ll also be unable move. It’s a tough job for an actor, but one James is up for, and which Boyle seems to think he can pull off. The movie is due to start filming in March, with Boyle reuniting with the Slumdog Millionaire team of producer Christian Colson and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy.
Although the director is going to have a tough job keeping people’s expectations in check for 127 Hours post-Slumdog, it certainly sounds like an interesting if rather harrowing movie.