Some interesting pieces of info on Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” have trickled out of late.
As you’ll recall, “127 Hours” is Boyle’s next directorial effort scheduled to begin shooting around next March and is the chronicle of real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston, who made national headlines in 2003 when a boulder trapped him on a hiking trip in Utah and the mountaineer had to sever and self-amputate the bottom half of his right arm to survive.
Ralston spent five days trapped by the boulder trying to break free and then delirious, starving and dehydrated, realized he would soon die if he did not somehow free himself and made the bold decision to amputate his own arm with only a dull blade. Upon freeing himself he still had to rappel down perilous, sheer, mountain cliffs and walk several miles to safety before he was finally rescued by helicopters (Ralston explained much of his ordeal in gruesome detail on TLC).
While it might be Boyle’s next project in a recent interview with the Aspen Times, Ralston said the director had approached him about his story, pre-“Slumdog Millionaire” in 2006.
“He showed me his copy of my book” — ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’— “and every page had marks and underlinings,” Ralston said of their meeting in the Netherlands. “He was really interested.”
Ralston said initially he didn’t want his story fictionalized and instead wanted to show the tale as a traditional styled “docu-drama,” but realized that wouldn’t sell the director on the story. “To make it something Danny Boyle wanted to do, we had to make it a theatrical drama. He had no interest in doing a docu-drama. But there are different ways to inspire audiences through filmmaking. Instead of being ‘Touching the Void’ — it’ll be more like [Sean Penn’s 2007 film, starring Emile Hirsch] ‘Into the Wild’.”
But recently, at BAFTA LA’s Britannia Awards, Anne Thompson was onhand to hear Danny Boyle speak about the film. She says, “the dramatic hook is that Boyle intends to film the first part of the movie with no dialogue. The guy is alone in a canyon. Period. No soccer ball tricks like Tom Hanks in “Castaway.’ “
If Boyle really goes through with that, that means… one hour plus without dialogue? That’s what /Film is speculating, but we think they’re taking the comments far too literally (they actually guess an hour and a half of no dialogue). That’s never going to happen. First 30 minutes ala “There Will Be Blood”? Yeah, that we can buy, but an hour and a half without dialogue sounds like an experimental film that not even the Boyle-loving Fox Searchlight can endorse (they are falling on hard times it seems this year).
Though Ryan Gosling has been rumored and Fox Searchlight are already behind the picture Boyle said at the BAFTA evening that “the script has no green light or budget.” That’s because it’s not even done. Boyle’s been writing it on his own and recently brought in ‘Slumdog’ scribe Simon Beaufoy to help out.
In the Aspen Times piece, Ralston said he’s consultant on the script, playing watchdog to factual accuracy and is meeting this week with Beaufoy. But in the end he says, he retains, “a lot of input, but no control,” noting that Boyle has “final cut” of his life story (or that particular part of his life story anyhow). “Thankfully, I have a lot of trust in Danny Boyle,” he said.
Ralston says the rumored choice of Ryan Gosling would be a good one too. “If it turned out to be Ryan Gosling, I’d be happy with that. He’s one of my wife Jessica’s favorite actors. I’ve been watching a lot of his films, and I’m impressed.” We agree and hope it happens, but it will probably depend on what he, or any actor thinks of the script that probably won’t be finished for a few months. That and scheduling of course.
Phish Music In “127 Days”? Let’s hope this doesn’t happen. “We’ve had talks about [including] Phish music. Danny’s asked what Phish lyrics might be able to be worked in.”
Look, we know folks in Colorado have that granola flavor, but dear god, no.