Sat Dec 13, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

Darren Aronofsky Envisions Violent 'RoboCop'

Talks 'Fountain' and 'Noah'

Darren Aronofsky spoke with reporters about his plans for RoboCop while promoting the release of The Wrestler. He warned that he intended to return to the ultra-violence found in Paul Verhoeven’s first feature.

"If we do it, it [can] definitely be rated R," Aronofsky said. "I mean, [it won't] necessarily, but we have that freedom."

He acknowledged that David Self is at work on the screenplay and until that’s finished everything has to wait. "So until there's a screenplay, there's nothing to really talk about. Until we're going, it just doesn't exist for me. It's just like we're trying to get something good, and we'll see what happens."

His interest in cyborgs, such as RoboCop, began from a routine examination. "Before you get an MRI, they give you a list of like 38 different things, how you can have metal in your body. From a shutter in your eyelid to a pacemaker, screws and all this stuff you can have in your system. I realized, 'Wow, we are cyborgs.' I mean, everything's not inside us, but the way we're connected to the technology and everything is right there."

Aronofsky expanded upon the comments he first made on MTV about re-editing his film The Fountain in hopes of gaining a new release. He calls the new version a “redux” and said, "It's something more for fans. I worked on the film for six years, and it went through a lot of versions. There was one version that was much closer to one of the scripts that we had, and we chose between which way we would go with it. They both are interesting, so I always was curious for myself to see what that alternative version would be.

"It's very similar but looking at a few things in a few different ways, and it answers a few questions for people and raises some new questions in other ways, so it's kind of cool."

The troubled film actually first saw light as a Vertigo graphic novel in 2005 and he may return to the format once more for his still-developing Noah project.  He admitted to being somewhat obsessed with the biblical figure since, as a 13-year-old, he won a United Nations poetry competition for a poem about the end of the world as seen through the eyes of Noah.

He previously had told Slash Film, “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 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.”

Although he’s admitted to some he has an actor attached to star, he still may go the graphic novel route first.

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