We’ve known for years and years that Noah is that film incessantly bubbling beneath the surface of Aronofsky’s mind, and that it would be a hell of a thing if and when he got to make it. While a graphic novel has become an outlet of sorts, I’ve always gotten the feeling that this was not a project Aronofsky wanted to compromise and retool into a smaller film —a la The Fountain— just to get it done.
Maybe he won’t have to, and maybe the time for him to make it is now.
Word on the street, so far as Deadline hears it, is that Aronofsky has a new package making the rounds in Hollywood for a production of Noah with a $130m budget, and a new rewrite of Aronofsky’s script by John Logan. That’s not a compromising version of this project. Even better news is that there appears to be interest and Summit, Fox, and Paramount are all considering co-financing with a very interested New Regency to get this epic made. That script will also have the fingerprints of the writer of Gladiator, The Last Samurai, Hugo Cabret, Bond 23, and Lincoln all over it- not bad at all.
Obviously Aronofsky has hit his highest peak yet in terms of acclaim, clout, and financial interest as Black Swan was an honest to god hit- a creepy, small, 100% art film that became a $315m worldwide success and Oscar winner. He had similar interest surrounding him (and even made a similar push for the project) after the critical success of The Wrestler, but he didn’t have the big numbers to back him that time. With Black Swan not only it was it a commercial/critical success, but it was a pure vision, an uncompromising vindication of Aronofsky’s interests as a filmmaking. of There has never been a time like the present for the director to make his most epic dream come true. His vision of world-building around the Biblically apocalyptic events of Noah’s ark is not something easily done, and to wait any long, or roll the reputation dice on any more films before doing it could squander the delicate heat he’s currently got. It’s a fickle world after all.
I think Aronofsky ultimately belongs in cinema of the small, the terrifyingly intimate, the psychological, but he should have the chance to unleash on a huge scale at least the once. I have no doubt he’ll make a big budget studio film one day, but the real test is a large-scale film coming from his interests. Perhaps his genius proportionally scales?
Cross your fingers that one of these studios nuts up and makes this happen. We’ve been waiting a very long time.
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