DarrenAronofsky Tagged Articles at Cinematical

By Alison Nastasi

Darren Aronofsky's latest film is a thriller with a supernatural twist. Black Swan is currently in pre-production and Slashfilm recently revealed full casting details for the film. It was already announced that Natalie Portman will star as Nina, a veteran ballerina competing against a mysterious rival dancer, Lily, played by Mila Kunis. As the dancers approach an important performance, Nina starts to question if her rival is a supernatural apparition or if she's having delusions and her identity starts to blur with that of her eerily similar competitor. To the absolute joy of fanboys everywhere, the film includes an "ecstasy-induced hungry, aggressive, angry sex" scene between Portman and Kunis. Having flashbacks to Requiem for a Dream yet?

Joining the cast of Black Swan will be Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder and Barbara Hershey. Ryder plays Beth, Nina's frenemie who used to be the star dancer but is nearing the end of her career. Hmm. Cassel is the "handsome but sinister" (love him but no shocker here) Yevna who is the stage director and Hershey is Nina's mother.

Read more at HorrorSquad!

If you've been arguing with your friends and family about the arrest and detainment of Roman Polanski in Switzerland last week, don't feel bad -- you're not the only one with an opinion. There's a debate brewing in Hollywood over the acclaimed director and his current legal predicament, and everyone has jumped into the fray. Polanski fled from the US after a conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor back in 1978, and with his recent arrest some of the biggest names in Hollywood have been publicly showing support. Recently, filmmakers like Michael Mann, Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam, and Woody Allen (ahem, yes, even Woody Allen) signed a petition demanding the filmmaker's release from a Zurich jail. On the other hand, there is a very real possibility that not everybody is on board the love train, and the problem is that those people aren't talking.

Hollywood is a business, and just like in any other business, reputation can be everything. If you think of Hollywood as the world's biggest high school, then you can see how nobody wants to be excluded from the 'cool table' -- and it doesn't help that the pro-Polanski faction has Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, and the opposition has Sherri Shepherd and 'Nellie Olsen'. In a piece for the LA Times, writer/blogger Melissa Silverstein said, "I think people are afraid to talk in Hollywood. They are afraid about their next job." Sure, that might sound slightly paranoid, but power players like Harvey Weinstein are writing op-eds in support of the director, so maybe she's not completely off the mark.

After the jump: making excuses and Hollywood vs. Middle America...

MGM has been plagued by financial woes for much of their long and illustrious career, but their most recent crisis could end up costing them two of their biggest titles. Nikke Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily is breathlessly reporting that the studio is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy with over $3.5 billion in debt. MGM held a very long conference call with their creditors, pleading with themto waive their interest payments until February 2010, and allow them the cash they need for the rest of the year, particularly to fund its upcoming slate of films. Naturally, some of those are highly anticipated, such as Robocop, The Hobbit, and the latest James Bond installment.

However, MGM's creditors aren't feeling particularly charitable, and may force the studio to file for bankruptcy. If that happens, they could lose James Bond, The Hobbit, and numerous other franchises as MGM would have to sell them to the highest bidder. Right now, they're trying to convince their Scrooges that bankruptcy is the worst possible option, and that Bond and Bilbo are big enough moneymakers to cover their debt. That's where the situation stands now, and it'll certainly be quite the economic spectacle to watch.

I find the news particularly interesting in light of Peter Jackson's remarks on The Hobbit at ComicCon, when he squashed rumors that the film was in the casting stages, and noted that it hadn't even really been green-lit or had its budget approved yet. It was a douse of cold water after a lot of breathless excitement, much of which seemed to come straight from the filmmakers themselves. Could the brakes have been put on because of MGM's financial woes? Possibly.

Continued below the jump

You'll never be able to predict what kind of story Darren Aronofsky will tackle next. He's gone from math to ballet without blinking an eye, and is now planning to tell the tale of the world's biggest bank heist. His Protozoa Films shingle has teamed up with XYZ Films and Time Inc. to produce "a gritty heist thriller" based on MMA and UFC star "Lighting" Lee Murray and his alleged role in the 2006 robbery of the Securitas Depot. Over $85 million was stolen from the English depot, making it the largest cash heist in history and it's probably the only one with a UFC star as its (possible) mastermind.

Kerry Williamson will be penning the script, which will be based on Howard Sounes' book, Heist: The Inside Story of the World's Biggest Robbery and Jon Wertheim's Sports Illustrated article "Breaking the Bank." Aronofsky will produce with an eye on directing. I can't find Wertheim's article online, but Wikipedia has the blow-by-blow of the heist for those interested as it's way too long to summarize here. It certainly is, as Aronofsky puts it, "a very unique British heist tale with colorful London characters." It's as though a Guy Ritchie movie actually happened, but with a lot more money, guns, and success.

Murray's story by itself is pretty wild. The year before the heist, he was in a fight outside London's Funky Buddha that severed an artery, punctured one of his lungs, and nearly cost him his life. A year later, he allegedly pulled this heist, and has been in and out of Moroccan prison ever since. He even tried to escape at one point -- apparently you just can't keep this guy down. If there's a director who knows something about that, it's Aronofsky, who seems to specialize in making us identify with desperate and obsessed individuals. Perhaps you can predict a little about Aronofsky's projects after all ....

From wrasslers to ballerinas...

Last month, we learned that Natalie Portman was going to star in Darren Aronofsky's next film, Black Swan. The plot:a veteran ballerina competes against "a rival dancer, with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach a big performance." Oh, and throw a little supernatural flavor for good measure. Well, according to The Hollywood Reporter, the rival will be played by Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Mila Kunis, and that bit of strangeness: this rival "might or might not be a figment of the dancer's imagination."

Frankly, this sound amazing, when one thinks of the range and success of Aronofsky's work -- math, drugs, strange time travel in space, wrestling... But I'm now torn on the casting -- mainly because of Kunis and Portman's vague resemblance to Summer Glau. Okay, so you need at least one big name to help fuel the film. But a ballerina film starring to dark-haired and petit actresses, and neither of them Glau? It seems like missing an opportunity to make use of her dancing talent.

Do you think Kunis and Portman will be able to pull off the foot-cramping world of ballerina-dom? Is Aronofsky making a mistake by not grabbing Glau? Sound off below!

Darren Aronofsky's so-called fast-tracking Black Swan met a big ol' brick wall and never got off the ground like it planned to back in 2007. The project got thrown into turnaround by Universal and faded away. But now, fresh with a spanky new rewrite, The Hollywood Reporter posts that the project is picking up steam.

The supernatural thriller, which takes place in New York City's ballet world, has gotten a rewrite by Mark Heyman, and one hell of a lead in Natalie Portman. It also doesn't hurt that The Wrestler did so darned well. The film, being described by some as a "spine-tingler" reminiscent of The Others, will focus on a veteran ballerina (Portman) competing against "a rival dancer, with the stakes and twists increasing as the dancers approach a big performance." Somehow, somewhere, something supernatural slips in.

But it's not a done deal yet. As tasty and unique as the project sounds (albeit with a slight hint of Joss Whedon and Summer Glau), it's being shopped to studios and isn't definite quite yet. However, should a studio bite, this project could get dancing right away. And should it? I think so. It'll be a whole new type of role for Portman, and I'm dying to see how she does in Aronofsky's unique world. How about you?

Current Academy Award nominee and perpetual comeback kid Mickey Rourke was humbled the other day by professional wrestler Chris Jericho, who both praised and knocked Rourke's (awesome) performance in The Wrestler before challenging Rourke to some sort of match, while on Larry King Live.

Coming three days after Rourke's claim at the SAG Awards ceremony that he'd be taking part in April's Wrestlemania match (and called out Jericho in particular, it seems), I'd say that it falls right in line -- except that Rourke only sits there and offers up gratitude while Jericho gets increasingly badgering in his confrontation, in a manner that seemed scripted more and more with each passing moment (did anyone else catch exactly why Jericho threw out the word "offended" after deeming his performance "immaculate"?).

It just goes to show you that maybe not all fights captured on video are necessarily worth clicking on. Maybe it's just for the attention. Maybe it's an argument best left to those individuals. Maybe you had good reason for watching that video -- maybe you even heartily agree with one side over the other -- or maybe you were just curious. Sometimes, though, these videos are best left unwatched... a rule that doesn't, however, apply to the movie at hand. (Seriously, see it if you can, folks.)

Note: Rourke's publicist has since come forward to say that he won't be participating in Wrestlemania, and instead will be "focusing entirely on his acting career." Um, what's the difference? [via Defamer]

I haven't really done any comprehensive Oscar predicting this year. There's a glut of prognosticators, and I'm not any good at it anyway. But I figure I should go out on one limb the day before nominations are announced -- how else can I look foolish on the 22nd? -- and here it is: I predict that Wall-E slips into the Best Picture final five and leaves The Dark Knight in the cold.

Now, I'll admit that I'm doing this partially to annoy Josh "Snub It And There Will Be Consequences" Tyler (because seriously, that was insane). But here's the thing: if you accept the conventional wisdom that four of the five Best Picture slots will be occupied by Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, that leaves Dark Knight and Wall-E (and possibly Doubt) fighting for #5. Since we're talking about Academy voters here, I think the smart money is on the beloved, endlessly charming Pixar flick over the pitch-black superhero epic. It's less divisive and more accessible. (I'll agree that it's not quite as awesome.) The Bat will content itself with tech noms and Heath Ledger.

So that's my last-minute sucker's bet. You got any? Aronofsky for Best Director? Dev Patel for Best Actor? Last chance, kids.

We always love it when there's a little controversy during a major awards show, because not only does it make the ceremony slightly more fun to watch, but it also gives us something to talk about, constantly, the following day. Thus, the two most controversial parts of last night's Golden Globe awards didn't come during an acceptance speech (although director Darren Aronofsky's giving "the finger" to Mickey Rourke was definitely a highlight for East Coasters); instead, two British comedians presenting clips for the films nominated in the best feature category were the talk of the town.

The two, Ricky Gervais and Sacha Baron Cohen, are known for taking risks with their comedy, and for making fun of Hollywood ... like, a lot. But on such an important night for the entertainment industry, and on a show broadcast around the world, were their jokes all in good fun or absolutely tasteless? Watch Sacha Baron Cohen's bit below and Gervais' little beer-drinking clip after the jump, then let us know whether you found them offensive, hilarious or just plain whatever.