Danny Boyle Wants Ryan Gosling For Lead Role In Proposed Aaron Ralston Survival Tale

Weird. Just earlier today we were saying that it’s been seven-some odd months after sweeping the Oscars with “Slumdog Millionaire,” and director Danny Boyle has still not decided on a follow-up project.

That may have changed.

Looks like Boyle is considering Ryan Gosling to play the lead in his “Into The Wild”-like survival tale about Aron Ralston. Ralston is the American mountain climber who made headlines in 2003 when he was forced to amputate part of his arm with a dull knife, after it became pinned under a boulder in a hiking accident. This is a project that Boyle has been circling since June of this year, around the time he signed his multi-film deal with Fox Searchlight.

Severely dehydrated, starving and weak, Ralston would have died had he not made the brutal, but necessary decision to cut off his arm. The gory, excruciating details are told in this first-hand Learning Channel account. It’s a bit hard to watch (though they don’t show gore), but it really gives a blow-by-blow account of what happened during his several-day-long ordeal.

DealMemo says the project is still taking shape (i.e., not done yet, no deals in place), but that the U.K. filmmaker has decided that Gosling is his top choice for the role. Gosling hasn’t appeared onscreen since “Lars And The Real Girl” in 2007, but has already shot his appearance in the continually-delayed “All Good Things” with Kirsten Dunst and “Blue Valentine” with Michelle Williams (of course he did almost appear in Peter Jackson’s “The Lovely Bones” as well, but that didn’t pan out).

So does this mean the Aaron Ralston tale is next? Sure sounds that way.

There’s no mention of “Maximum City” at all, another India/Mumbai project with Boyle’s name attached to it that ‘Slumdog’ scribe Simon Beaufoy is writing, and we’re not surprised. We said from minute one, if Boyle did tackle this picture it wouldn’t be right after “Slumdog Millionaire,” and he basically said as much a few months ago.There’s also a few other India-set projects that Boyle has been mentioned as a part of, but those sound much more like executive-producer participating projects.

What about the rumored remake of “My Fair Lady“? Just a rumor? Either way, it’s good to hear that Boyle is eyeing something new and it sounds like we’ll hear some announcements in the near future.