When Darren Aronofsky was 13-years-old, he won a United Nations poetry competition at his Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn school for a poem about the end of the world as seen through the eyes of Noah. And so started Aronofsky’s obsession with the biblical figure. In September we talked to Aronofsky about his idea for a film based on Noah:

“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,” said Aronofsky. “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.”

Now Aronofsky tells RopesofSilicon that they have a “big movie star” attached, but wouldn’t reveal his name.

“We have a script actually, it is a script but there is more work to do. We’re actually going to do a graphic novel of it right now, we’re just starting it, and we’re hiring a writer,” Aronofsky said. “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.”

This isn’t the first time that Aronofsky has turned to the world of comics. His initial version of The Fountain was released in graphic novel form by Vertigo Comics in 2005 after Brad Pitt left the project high and dry. Speaking of which, last week Darren told MTV that he would like to revisit The Fountain, and create an alternative cut with “with the addition of unused footage from the first go-round.” We, like many others were confused. Thankfully FirstShowing was able to talk to Aronofsky further about the idea.

“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 Fountain underperformed at the box office but has been gaining traction on DVD/Blu-ray. Hopefully Warner Bros might see enough demand to warrent a special edition release complete with alternative cut.