Darren Aronofsky‘s post-“Black Swan” ride has been as dizzying as any pirouette in the Oscar nominated film. As you already know he somewhat dramatically bailed on “The Wolverine” after much buzz had built up around him taking on the comic movie. And then just as surprisingly, it was revealed that Aronofksy was once again trying to get his long gestating “Noah” off the ground. The project has been in the works since at least 2007 and earlier in the year, it was revealed that Aronofsky was collaborating with comic book artist Nico Henrichon on a graphic novel take on the tale to spur interest in feature adaptation. Well, the roll of the dice worked, but financing for the $130 million dollar film became the next question. New Regency ponied up half of the cost with Paramount, Fox and Summit to start falling all over each other for the opportunity to pay the rest of the bills.
Well, the movie getting closer to getting made as Deadline reveals that Paramount is now officially on board pay half the bills. But that’s not all, the movie is now on the fast track to shoot next spring.
While the exact details of the scope and scale of Aronofsky’s film are still somewhat under wraps, the helmer previously described in broad strokes what he was planning to do. “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… 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,” he said. “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. Noah was the first person to plant vineyards and drink wine and get drunk. It’s there in the Bible – it was one of the first things he did when he reached land. There was some real survivor’s guilt going on there. He’s a dark, complicated character.”
The big question of course, is whether or not Christian Bale will take the lead role. While he was reported to be in talks this summer, in August it was revealed that Bale actually had quite a few projects he was looking at for his post-“The Dark Knight Rises” calendar including Spike Lee‘s “Oldboy,” Michael Mann‘s “Gold” and Clint Eastwood‘s “A Star Is Born.” And we don’t think “Noah” will roll unless it has an A-lister locked for the lead. Bale’s name is also conspicuously missing from the Deadline story.
We’re sure this is just the beginning of more to come for “Noah,” but it looks like the Darren Aronofsky’s next film is finally setting sail.
