Umm, ok, can someone please tell us what’s up with dark-noir auteur Darren Aronofsky?
The man has made pretty consistently excellent and cinematic envelope-pushing feature films, (“The Fountain,” “Requiem For A Dream,” and “Pi“), but guy who made these films appears to have gone down a rabbit hole [ed. ok, admittedly “The Fountain” had mixed reviews and it’s Yes album cover mix of psychedelic sci-fi lovestory turned even some of his devoted constituency off, but it’s an excellent film]
Ok, so Aronofsky doesn’t have a great commercial track record (most of film’s have lost money, “The Fountain” was a near flop – see the studio’s refusal to bother with his commentary track), but his artistic track record, put him in the modern auteur category, no matter how you feel about ‘Fountain’). But is this lack of commercial success guiding his next few years of directing obligations?
We’re not ones to judge, and you can’t really blam the dude, he’s been through a lot. He may have to pickup mainstream projects to prove himself and gain enough money for bigger budgets on his personal work. You’ll remember…
The Fountain Take 1/A Nightmarish Disaster
You’ll recall that “The Fountain” was initially widely and notoriously ambitious: Brad Pitt was all set to star in the $70 million dollar-budgeted opus, had spent months growing a gigantic woolly beard and then abruptly bailed, forcing Cate Blanchett to high-tail it out and the financers pulled out almost immediately (the film had spent $18 million in pre-production alone). Studio executives questioned his sanity and Aronofsky took months to recover, abandoned the project and then eventually revived it years later in the scaled-down version you saw in 2006 for $30 million (the ‘Fountain’s initial disaster led to the 5 year gap between it and 2000’s “Requiem For A Dream”).
Ok, fair enough and understandable, but his upcoming crop of projects does not sound like him at all.
Will The Real Darren Aronofsky Please Stand Up?
First up is “The Wrestler” which was written by the guy who was supposed to write ‘The Onion Movie’ that never happened (Robert Siegel) and it’s synopsis of “an over-the-hill grappler who returns to the ring for one last shot at glory,” sounds straight out of a c-list Will Ferrell film ala “Blades of Glory.” Even more troubling is the fact the film was originally scheduled to star washed-up actor Nicolas Cage (wait, maybe that fits). Cage just left the project for undisclosed reasons, and in his place is… Mickey Rourke? Ok, equally washed-up and leathered in a good way, but this film for Aronofsky??
This project seriously sounds like it’s the thinly disguised pseudo story of wrestler Randy “Macho Man” Savage (who Rourke doesn’t look that unlike; the character he plays is named Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson… uhh) and is apparently scheduled to shoot in January so there’s no backing out of it now [ed. hey, it’s happened before, see Mark Romanek’s “A Cold Case” as just one of many recent examples] So is thing a comedy then? Nope, it’s called an “indie drama.”
What’s up with Aronofsky and squared rings where sweaty man battle one another? His next project is imaginatively titled “The Fighter,” but at least this one seems a bit more up his alley. About Boston boxer “Irish” Mickey Ward and his unlikely path to become world lightweight champion, the film will start the man that fucked him on “The Fountain” Brad Pitt (we’re surprised he forgave him, Aronofsky once had some semi-unfavorable things to say about Pitt blaming the film’s shut-down on him. “It is like breaking up. If you break up with someone after two and a half years preparation, it is hard to say if it was one thing. It wasn’t like he left the toothpaste cap off the toothpaste.”) and Mark Wahlberg (note: Pitt just replaced Matt Damon who was originally slated to star). Up until now Aronofsky has written all his scripts, but again, “The Fighter” will be penned by Scott Silver, the guy who wrote “8 Mile.” Ok, we’re slightly less worried about this one.
After that its the ballet film “Black Swan.” No seriously. It’s actually a psychological thriller ballet film (no seriously) and one positive sounding aspect of the film is that it will be a co-production by Aronofsky’s Protozoa Films and Mike Medavoy’s Phoenix Pictures, which means slightly more independent and freer (“The Fighter” is Paramount, “The Wrestler” is ambiguous but seems more “indie). Again, written by someone else – John McLaughlin (uhh, he wrote “Man of the House“) – and the film is supposed to “look at the manipulative relationship between a veteran dancer and a rival” (so is this “The Prestige” but instead of rival magicians, it’s rival dancers? Do they do a dance off, pants off?).
Hmm, so there you have it. Sweaty people in rings, stories not written by the auteur and battling rival dancers that sissyfight. Maybe it’s all intended to fuel Aronofsky’s ambitious attempt to film Noah’s Ark? Maybe that idea was killed off by the similarly themed – albiet comedy – box-office bomb, “Evan Almighty“? Your guess is as speculative and good as ours.