Adding to Boyle's love of a challenge, he and producer Christian Colson rattled this one off with impressive pace.

The movie began shooting in March, and 127 Hours is set to be shown at the Toronto Film Festival on 12 September 2010. The speed was made possible by the digital cameras developed for Slumdog, meaning high-quality results could be gleaned from fast, agile equipment. It also meant that James Franco would be able to survive the restrictive shoot with his sanity (mostly) in tact.

"It was more of a sprint than an endurance test for the crew," Colson said. "Because we were working in very dangerous conditions on location and on a very small set in a factory. So we worked at an incredible pace or everyone would have gone mad."

It was also an effort to capture the horrifying, but defiantly real, event in all its brutality. There's no time for Hollywood gloss. In fact, despite the fact is is set in America and features an American actor, playing an American mountaineer, Boyle and Colson maintain that the movie is still resolutely British.