So it hasn’t made its way online now, but during Movie-Con this past weekend (the U.K.’s version of Comic-Con), the trailer for Danny Boyle’s “127 Hours” starring James Franco was shown. Empire were there and captured Boyle and the producers talking about the film and you’ve gotta love Boyle for following up an Academy Award-winning film (“Slumdog Millionaire”) with a picture that he says might be a “challenge” for audiences to watch.
“It’s a lovely way of doing a new kind of filmmaking, really,” he said of the film’s first-person, YouTube-like nature (read on). “We want it to be a challenge to you [the audience] to see if you can sit and watch it.” That’s probably not the most reassuring thing for a studio to hear, but it’s kind of great to hear Boyle admit that he’s going to be testing and taxing the resolve of audiences. That in of itself leads us to believe those who flipped for ‘Slumdog’ might be in for a rude awakening here (and from reader reports sent to us, the picture doesn’t sound like a cake walk).
The filmmaker definitely hints at the experimental nature of the film — it centers on one man trapped under a boulder for five days without food or water, recording video messages to his family because he believes he’s going to die — certainly not something that sounds easy to swallow.
‘Hours’ is based on the true-life events of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber canyoneering alone near Moab, Utah who had to resort to the desperate measure of cutting his own arm off in order to survive. Boyle alludes to the fact that we’re going to see that moment in all it’s gruesome glory. “There is something in it that’s quite tough to watch,” he said. It’s pretty clear what that “something” will be. While Franco, as the lead, carries much of the film on his shoulders, the project will also feature appearances by Amber Tamblyn, Lizzy Caplan, Kate Mara and Clémence Poésy. ‘127 Hours’ hits theaters November 5th after premiering at TIFF in September.