Danny Boyle tackles climber’s tale for next film

Film director Danny Boyle is to tell the true-life ordeal of the US climber forced to amputate part of his arm with a dull knife after he became trapped by a falling boulder. This is in stark contrast to Boyle's last film, the jubilant rags-to-riches tale Slumdog Millionaire, which swept the Oscars in February.
 
Variety is reporting that Boyle will be reunited with both the financial and creative teams behind Slumdog, which won eight Academy Awards including best picture and best director.

The new film, 127 Hours, is based on the story of mountaineer Aron Ralston who was pinned under the 800lb rock for five days in Utah in 2003. Ralston, then 27, had not told anyone of his plan to venture into the Utah backcountry and, assuming he would die, carved his birth date and presumed date of death into the rock and taped a goodbye video message to his family.
 
Ralston survived by drinking his own urine and by cutting off the lower part of his right arm, which had been crushed under the boulder. Within an hour he had freed himself, applied a makeshift tourniquet and abseiled from a 21-metre ledge. He then began the eight-mile trek back to his vehicle but came across three Dutch hikers who gave him food and water and alerted the park authorities. His arm was later retrieved and cremated, and Ralston scattered the ashes by the boulder.
 
Following his ordeal Ralston spent time on the US talkshow circuit and eventually wrote a book about his experience, Between a Rock and Hard Place. Now 33, he still climbs, using a prosthetic right arm, and has found celebrity on the corporate and motivational speaking circuit. He told the New York Times recently that the accident had been "a blessing in a way, it made me think about the way I was living...I was still going to die. I just wasn't going to die by that rock."
 
Filming on 127 Hours is due to start early next year and the film is likely to be released in late 2010. Boyle is currently looking for an actor to play Ralston - a meaty role given that the lead character is alone for most of the film.
 
Some observers have commented that 127 Hours may prove a tougher sell than the upbeat Slumdog Millionaire - which has so far earned $337m internationally.

But Kevin McDonald's mountaineering film, Touching the Void, was a big success back in 2004. Based on the true story of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates's near-fatal expedition in the Peruvian Andes, it won numerous awards and took almost $14m at the global box office - making it the most successful documentary in British cinema history. ·