After news came last week that writer-director Darren Aronofsky is looking to make a movie about the biblical story of the Great Flood, entitled Noah, Vulture are now reporting that Christian Bale is in talks to star in what would presumably be the lead role.
Aronofsky’s vision for the film is a great one, and he’s said to be looking for a $130m. budget for this project, and getting a talented actor like Bale would definitely help secure that kind of big-scale financing.
No doubt, an epic cinematic rendering of the Great Flood would necessitate an incredibly strong performance from whoever plays Noah, because he would quite literally be the last man left on Earth, to whom it is up to to repopulate civilisation after the Earth has been cleansed. Bale is a talented man and one of the few actors who capable of such a performance.
Bale starred in The Fighter last year, which won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, as well as substantial critical acclaim for what was a very impressive performance. He seems always eager to play some of the most difficult of roles, from Patrick Bateman in American Psycho to Trevor Reznik in The Machinist (a film in which he dropped almost four and a half stone to shoot) to the intensity he brings as The Dark Knight, and so a demanding role in Aronofsky’s Noah seems like a perfect fit.
The film would likely be Aronofsky’s next feature after the dramatic success of Black Swan at the end of last year, and would be the first time he’ll direct a script he’s written since 2006’s The Fountain, and I can’t wait to see the ideas that he’s been coming up with for this in the meantime. Hopefully getting Bale on board with the project would help in securing the film’s significant budget, and get it that much closer to production.
John Logan (Gladiator, The Last Samurai) is working with Aronofsky to rewrite the script, and hopefully while that is going on, Bale will sign on with the director to take on the lead role in Noah. Things may not be definite yet, but all parties involved with the project so far are among of the best at what they do, and getting them to work together for something as immense a film as Noah has the potential to be is an exciting prospect.
