Danny Boyle to "Challenge" Audiences with 127 Hours

The trailer for Danny Boyle's 127 Hours starring James Franco was shown at Comic Con and though it hasn't made it's way to the web yet, Empire magazine was there and captured Boyle and the producers talking about the film. Nice to see Boyle follow up an Academy Award winning film (Slumdog Millionaire) with a film he says will be a challenge 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. "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).

Boyle hints at the experimental nature of the film — it centers on one man (James Franco) 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. The film is based on the true life events of Aron Ralston, a mountain climber who had to resort to the desperate measure of cutting off his own arm in order to survive. "There is something in it that's quite tough to watch," Boyle said. We can all hint what that "something" is. The film is set for a November 5th, 2010 release, after it's run at the Toronto festival in September. A must see perhaps?