From General Hospital to in desperate need of a trip to the hospital – James Franco will find himself in the rock-climbing shoes of Aron Ralston in Danny Boyle’s 90 minute exercise of show, not tell for Fox Searchlight. This Production Weekly twitter feed should get a lot of traction from the film news media, as most have been speculating since November whether the Ryan Gosling and Cillian Murphy would indeed play the solo part. If filming does take place in Utah then it’ll be a short drive for Franco who’ll be opening Sundance with his take on Allen Ginsberg in Howl. Filming on 127 Hours is set to begin in the month of March.
This is based on the true story of the mountaineer, whose 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.
Just a warning: we’ll be seeing plenty of Franco in 2010 with the theatrical releases of Date Night, Your Highness, Eat, Pray, Love, In Praise of Shadows and Howl on tap.
