Interview: Darren Aronofsky - Part 3

By Peter Sciretta/Sept. 12, 2008 7:00 am EST

Peter Sciretta: Back to Robocop, is it going to be a sequel or is it a remake.

Darren Aronofsky: It’s absolutely unrelated to the original. As Mike Medavoy already went on the record. David Self and my team have been working really hard on it. It’s a completely new universe.Peter Sciretta: Is it going to be set in the future, or is it going to be today?Darren Aronofsky: It’s going to be the future. And it’s really great. We’ve got to nail the script then we’ve got to find a script that the studio wants to make. So we’ve got work to do…Peter Sciretta: So tell me this, with The Fountain you did so many practical special effects, like that whole climax sequence… with Robocop would you be…Darren Aronofsky: I have no idea. I have no idea. It’s so early, but I think cyborgs are really interesting, because… I think it’s so funny. I got an MRI. Here’s a funny story. The last day of shooting, Mickey made me jump off the top rope. He made the whole crew jump off the top rope. I went first, and it was the last day of shooting, after a grueling shoot. It was late at night, and I was wearing boots. I wasn’t even wearing sneakers and I jumped. I got over the top rope and my tip of my toe caught the top rope and I went bam! I landed on my fuckin’ head and on my neck. My neck was killing me for five weeks, so I went to get MRI. I’m fine, but to take an MRI, you can’t have any metal on your body because it’s basically a giant magnet. So there’s a check list of probably 30 things that you could have. Like an eyelid shutter, pacemakers, re-implants. I couldn’t believe the different types of things that people have in their bodies. And I realized you know what? We are in a cyborg culture, we are part cyborg already. It’s only a matter of time till we have the cell phones in our head and the mp3 players in our ears…

Peter Sciretta: And it’s all going to get more nano too.

Darren Aronofsky: Yeah, so there are a lot of interesting themes out there that connect even more than when Verhoeven did it. A nd I have full 100 percent respect for that, but I kind of don’t even want to go near that territory, except for the “bitches, leave!” line. [laughs] Otherwise I think that’s the only shout out to the movie we’ll have.Peter Sciretta: That’s awesome. The only other thing I wanted to ask you about is when you were in San Francisco with The Fountain, you told me about your next project, which was going to be a religious film…Darren Aronofsky: That was Noah.

Peter Sciretta: Yes, Noah, what’s happening with that?

Darren Aronofsky: We have an amazing screenplay.Peter Sciretta: Who wrote it??Darren Aronofsky: I wrote it. Me and Ari Handel, the guy who worked on the Fountain. It’s a great script and it’s HUGE. And we’re starting to feel out talent. And then we’ll probably try and set it up…Peter Sciretta: So this isn’t something you can make for six million dollars?Darren Aronofsky: No, this is big. I mean, Look… 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.Peter Sciretta: [laughs]Darren Aronofsky: [laughs]Peter Sciretta: You would hope so.?Darren Aronofsky: Yeah, I would hope so. It’s a really cool project and 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. Oh that’s right I forgot I told you that whole religious thing.

[At this point a publicist came in to drag Darren away]

Darren Aronofsky: I had forgotten about San Francisco but now I totally remember. All right, man, it’s been really good to see you. Thank you so much.