Darren Aronofsky Wants Russell Crowe To Play NOAH
Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky is prepping his next film project where he will tackle the biblical epic tale of Noah and his Ark. Deadline has just reported that the director wants Russell Crowe to take on the title role of Noah. This was a part Christian Bale was once circling, but it ended up not happening. The site also mentions that Aronofsky is looking to cast Liam Neeson in the film as well in an unspecified role.
I can totally see Crowe playing Noah. The guy just has a booming presence, and that's what this character needs. I hope that they can all work something out. In a recent interview, cinematographer Matthew Libatique he revealed that the story will also have a villain... maybe Neeson is the person they want to cast in that role? Here's what he said,
That's the hangup right now, they haven't cast Noah yet. But it's got a guy in his 40s so it's not going to be young. It's going to be 40s. And there's a big villain part, gotta have a villain in the story of Noah. Someone who's saying 'Listen, don't listen to him. We're fine! We don't need to build any ark. Don't be so alarmist! Don't be so fundamentalist.' You know? One of those guys. So it sounded like a lot of fun, actually.
I would love to see Crowe and Neeson face off in war of words in an epic film like this, it could end up being pretty spectacular. I think this is some pretty exciting casting news, what do you think about these two actors possibly being cast in this movie?
As we previously reported: This is a project that Aronofsky has been very passionate about. He's already turned it into comic book adaptation. According to the director, the inspiration for Noah came from a 1976 Sunn Pictures documentary called In Search of Noah's Ark that he watched when he was kid, and he is a "huge fan." In a few previous interviews he talked about his vision of Noah, saying,
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 tragedies we perform on each other are so well reported. Quite clearly, the planet is dying, and we are dying on it.
I was stunned going back and realizing how dirty some of those stories are. They're not PG in any way. They're all about sleeping with your brother's sister who gives you a child who you don't know. That kind of stuff got censored out of our religious upbringing.
He went on to share his thoughts on the script,
It’s a great script and it’s huge… 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… 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. 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.