How times change. The last time I talked to Darren Aronofsky he was stumping for The Fountain, and he mentioned that he wanted to do a movie about Noah (the guy from the Bible with the big boat). After The Fountain failed to make an impact critically or at the box office*, a pricey Biblical epic seemed unlikely for Aronofsky. But now his film The Wrestler has people excited, and was at the center of one of the main bidding wars at the Toronto Film Festival. Fox Searchlight will be putting it out for Oscar consideration and all of a sudden the stock of Darren Aronofsky is back on the rise – as it should be, since the guy’s sort of a visionary.
So with all this new excitement, and with an almost guaranteed commercial hit in Robocop, Aronofsky getting a chance at his Biblical epic seems more realistic. He recently sat down with Peter Sciretta in Toronto for an interview as epic as Noah’s story, and he talked a little bit about his plans.
Says Darren: “I wrote it. Me and Ari Handel, the guy who worked on the Fountain. It’s a great script and it’s HUGE. And we’re starting to feel out talent. And then we’ll probably try and set it up… [the budget] is big. I mean, Look… It’s the end of the world and it’s the second most famous ship after the Titanic. So I’m not sure why any studio won’t want to make it.
“It’s a really cool project and I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet. So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us. Noah was the first environmentalist. He’s a really interesting character. Hopefully they’ll let me make it.”
I hope so too.
* I’m no longer bitter about this.