Darren Aronofsky's Plans for 'Noah' and 'The Fountain' Redo

By Elisabeth Rappe,Cinematical

The Fountain Redo

It's becoming clear that Darren Aronofsky is still haunted by the failure of The Fountain -- and I don't mean that as negatively as it might sound. He has a right to be bothered by it. It was a struggle to make, and a deeply personal story that was given rather shoddy treatment all around.

So it's not surprising that he wants to return to it -- but what is surprising is that he told MTV that his goal isn't an ultimate director's cut, but something akin to a remake. "It wouldn't be a 'director's cut' - more like an alternate story told with the addition of unused footage from the first go-round. This would be a complicated project on a couple of levels, though, and it's at least a few years away."

That has to be the most intriguing tease ever. Some of the missing scenes could be found in the graphic novel -- in its afterword, Aronofsky described rewriting the script to be the lean indie film we saw onscreen, which always implied that he had never shot the "extras" that were in the book. There's nothing that changes the story drastically -- the book was esentially the same, except for an extended sequence in Spain that explored the love affair between the Queen and Tomas, the political problems it was causing her, and the hold the Inqusition had on the country. It's a beautiful, incredibly romantic chapter of the book.

At First Showing, Aronofsky clarified (kind of) his idea of redoing The Fountain, saying that it wasn't a recut but something like a redux: "It's something more for fans. I worked on the film for 6 years and it went through a lot of versions. And there was one version that was much closer to one of the scripts that we had. And we kind of chose between which way we would go with it and they both are kind of interesting. So I was always curious for myself to see what that alternative version would be. And we cut it actually recently, it's done ... It's very similar but it's looking at a few things in a few different ways and answers a few questions for people and raises some new questions in other ways." The director hopes that popular demand will convince Warner Bros to let him properly make and release it.

Noah's Ark

Darren Aronofsky's Noah movie is on every sensible film fan's wish list, and it seems to inch a little closer to reality every day. In September, he revealed that he had finished the script -- and now comes news as to what he's doing with it. Aronofsky told Ropes of Silicon that he's currently in the process of turning it into a graphic novel. Considering the one he did for The Fountain, we'll be in for a very special read.

But fear not, film fans, he's still planning to put it on the big screen: "Eventually we'll set it up, but we're just figuring it out. It's a very difficult film to get made and we're slowly working on it to get it put together." And how's this for a tease? "There is an actor attached, but I'm not going to say who, but he's a big movie star."