Darren Aronofsky on his “Batman: Year One” script:
“I never really wanted to make a Batman film, it was a kind of bait and switch strategy. I was working on ‘Requiem for a Dream’ and I got a phone call that Warner Bros wanted to talk about Batman. At the time I had this idea for a film called ‘The Fountain’ which I knew was gonna be this big movie and I was thinking, ‘Is Warners really gonna give me $80 million to make a film about love and death after I come off a heroin movie?’ So my theory was if I can write this Batman film and they could perceive me as a writer for it, then maybe they’d let me go ahead, which worked out great until… Brad Pitt quit.”
This comes from the Edinburgh Film Festival in Scotland, where Aronofsky was acting kind of funny. One of our friends was also in attendance and told us the same story above and mentioned when he was asked about “RoboCop,” he denied any involvement.
Asked about the remake, Aronofsky says, “You shouldn’t listen to that press stuff.” Asked if his involvement was true he said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s entirely possible, Aronofsky is so sick of hearing these questions, he’s just cutting them off at the nub, as our friend said the director appeared to be “deflecting all questions about future projects.” It’s also entirely possible since “RoboCop” isn’t really a remake as the director has said many times, anytime he hears the word “remake” he blanches and gives a stonewall answer.
A Dec 2008 interview one of our readers recently brought to our attention with Aronofsky had him in the same peculiar mood where he claimed Brad Pitt was never attached to “The Fighter,” despite it being in the trades more than once. “Pitt was never attached, that was just another Internet nonsense thing. The Internet stuff is all over the place” (Variety even reported that he replaced Matt Damon. Is Darren saying the trades make stuff up?). It’s also funny because we asked Aronofsky ourselves personally about Brad Pitt’s involvement in “The Fighter” last fall and he told us straight up that the actor had left the project. It’s possible that Pitt was never “officially attached” (as in never signed anything) but to say he was never involved at all seems to be rewriting history and calling a lot of journalists who presumably did their job well, retards. Hey, maybe it’s not true, but it seems very odd. He seems like a slippery fellow, who knows. [CinemaBlend]
Update: That was fast, AICN talked to Aronofsky and asked him point blank about “RoboCop,” and he said he’s still part of the project, which sort of proves our point. When Aronofsky seems vexed, he’ll give out any ol’ answer to shut people up, but that kind of sucks, because it sort of means you can’t trust everything the guy says. Or at least you have to tread lightly.
Update: Here’s some video from the event if you want some context around the 3:50 mark. Clearly he was just messing about and pulling the chain of the audience member who asked the question. It also makes you realize just how easily quotes can be taken out of context without tone and body language. A reminder for all of us that work with material we get second hand everyday.