When you start trying to reconcile in your head the idea of Darren Aronofsky mixing his very dour and often profound sensibilities with the often much shallower concerns of a $130m movie, the teeth on the various cogs in your brain might have a little trouble catching. It’s not hard at all to imagine Aronofsky stepping up to the task of managing a production of that scale and a brilliant movie resulting, but the mix of studio concerns and art and commerce are all a little wonky. It’s a bit easier when you consider Christian Bale as the lead in said $130m art epic, as the actor has himself long managed to be a part of a staggeringly huge commercial franchise that absorbs the dark underpinnings of Bale’s personality quite well, and then more generally maintain a career that fuses art with pop. Also, he’s rather bankable these days.
Word comes from Vulture that Aronofsky is indeed to looking to loosely secure the very-busy actor as the Noah package continues to be pitched and considered around town. When we last spoke of Noah and the new pitches I expressed a lot of optimism about his chances, especially relative to any other time in his career, past or hypothetical. He’s perfectly poised with critical, commercial, and artistic credibility and tossing in a huge element from the biggest superhero franchise ever will only help.
As discussed previously, New Regency is looking for some help with co-financing of the large scale picture, and it’s those studios that are pondering the deal.
There’s lots of jokes about Bale busting out the Primer device and aging himself a few hundred years here, but I’m really expecting him to just take a quick research turn of becoming an alcoholic and hoping his kids try and bang him. In fact, the most recent CHUD podcast concludes with a brilliant discussions of many such wonderful acts of Noah that Bale could use to get into character.
Considering there’s no money yet, I’d only expect to hear about Bale signing on once an overall deal is done and the project is fully announced. Fingers crossed that happens soon, and that Darren gets those cameras rolling before anyone can change their damn minds.
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