Darren Aronofsky Trying To Secure Christian Bale For 'Noah'

Darren Aronofsky is finally on the verge of making Noah, the biblical epic that began gestating when the director was just a young'un. The film has a co-financing deal with New Regency, and if they can find a studio willing to put up the other half of the budget, all systems could be 'go.' (Or whatever the terminology would be when dealing with an ark.)

Trouble is, the other half of the budget is a good amount of money, as Noah is likely to cost around $130 million. So having a big name attached to the film would help, and Darren Aronofsky is now looking to Christian Bale to be that name.

Vulture says the director and actor are in talks to get Christian Bale to commit to the film. So this is a different 'in talks' than what the term usually means — it's more like Christian Bale is in talks to be in talks to be in Noah. Still: that's provisionally good news, and Noah seems like a role that Bale could easily own.

Paramount, Summit and Fox (at which New Regency is based) are the three studios reportedly circling the project right now, and given the deal that Darren Aronofsky has with Fox, it seems like it shouldn't be the most difficult sell.

But Noah is exactly the sort of movie Fox isn't making right now, so can Aronofsky persuade the studio that some faith-based marketing would sell the film to a Passion of the Christ-sized audience? Given that he has said that this would be a very R-rated, explicit version of the story, that probably isn't the easiest task to accomplish.