James Franco on the replicated canyon set for Danny Boyle’s '127 Hours.'

Tom Hanks has done it. Now it’s time for James Franco to measure up and see if, like Hanks, he could make a first-person cinematic experience compelling enough as the Oscar awards-winning actor did in 2000’s “Cast Away.”

Franco stars in “127 Hours,” an extraordinary story of courage and human will. And because it essentially takes the viewers through the harrowing experience his character goes through, the challenge facing Franco is how he can hold his audience through every emotionally charged second of his ordeal.

In the movie, Franco plays Aron Ralston, a mountain climber-adventurer who ends up trapped in a slot in the Utah canyon. Culled from Ralston’s memoir, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” director Danny Boyle (“Slumdog Millionaire”) uses his highly subjective camera to take the audience into the drama and, let’s face it, near dementia that his main character goes through.

“I knew I wanted to bring the audience into the canyon with Aron and to not let them go until he himself is released,” Boyle explains. “Of course, I saw this as an extraordinary story of outdoor survival, but I also think there is a whole other layer to this story that will be surprising for people. It’s not simply about how Aron survived, incredible as that is. There is a life force that Aron tapped into that goes way beyond his remarkable courage as an individual, and that’s what we hope to capture on screen. It’s something that binds us all together and when Aron, who seems all alone in this canyon, is pulled back to the idea of community, there is something very powerful that happens.”

Boyle goes on: “People often say about the story, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I could do that.’ But I think we all would do anything we could for this life that is so beautiful and keeps us going. What I think Aron experienced in that canyon over those six days was a sudden realization of the full value of life.”

In doing “127 Hours,” Boyle also had to go back to his own experiences and insights from working on “Slumdog Millionaire.” And in taking into consideration both films, he now notes, “It was extraordinary to go from the crowds of Mumbai, where you’re surrounded by a billion people, to the opposite extreme of a man completely on his own. It was a wonderful contrast and a terrific challenge. The films couldn’t be any more different – and yet, in a way, they are both about beating impossible odds.”

For Franco, meanwhile, the role is a challenge in many levels.  “It is made up of so many little personal moments, those moments we all have when you’re completely alone,” he says. “I felt like that was a side of me I could really understand and tap into.”

What is essentially the story of a man confronting his own death, Franco also related to the fact that his character wants to get back to life—and his torment and strength are all told through minute physical actions and “these kinds of private soliloquies Aron has when he talks to his video camera.”

Taking it up a notch, Franco threw himself into the role—and into that tight replicated canyon set—with a passion, emerging from shooting days with bruises, rashes and scars.  “It was a physically taxing shoot for me,” he admits. “But it was such an interesting situation to portray… Aron had to accept that he might die in order to take the risk to get free. And for me, that’s a lot of what this was about, looking at how a person copes with being alone, being afraid, being in pain, and how that gets him right down to the essentials of existence.”

Witness Aron Ralston’s story of survival in “127 Hours,” showing in local cinemas beginning Feb. 9.