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Rough Seas on 'Noah': Darren Aronofsky Opens Up on the Biblical Battle to Woo Christians (and Everyone Else)
7:00 AM PST 2/12/2014 by Kim Masters
"I was upset — of course," the director says of Paramount testing alternate versions of the $125 million epic as he and the studio break their silence on efforts to appease a small but vocal segment of the faith-based audience: "Those people can be noisy."
This story first appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
When Darren Aronofsky was a 13-year old in Brooklyn, he had one of those unforgettable teachers. Mrs. Fried dressed in pink and drove a pink Mustang; Aronofsky says she was "magical." When she assigned his English class to write about peace, Aronofsky produced a poem about the dove that wings its way to Noah aboard the ark in the Bible. When the poem won a United Nations contest, it sparked Aronofsky's nascent faith in his creative powers.
More than three decades later, the 44-year-old director is completing his epic take on the Noah story, a project he's contemplated ever since he made his breakout indie film Pi in 1998. At that time, he says, he talked to producer Lynda Obst about the idea, prompting her to ask, "Do you realize what you're getting into?"
He didn't. The making of Noah, with Russell Crowe as the lead, turned into a head-on collision between an auteur filmmaker coming off a career-defining success in Black Swan ($330 million global, five Oscar nominations) and a studio working to protect a major investment that is intended to appeal to believers of every religion as well as those without any faith. Paramount Pictures, in partnership with New Regency Productions, is shouldering a budget on the March 28 release of more than $125 million, by far the costliest movie Aronofsky has made. (His previous high was $35 million for The Fountain, which foundered for Warner Bros. in 2006. Black Swan was independently financed and cost just $13 million.)
The trouble began when Paramount, nervous about how audiences would respond to Aronofsky's fantastical world and his deeply conflicted Noah, insisted on conducting test screenings over the director's vehement objections while the film was a work in progress.
Friction grew when a segment of the recruited Christian viewers, among whom the studio had hoped to find Noah's most enthusiastic fans, questioned the film's adherence to the Bible story and reacted negatively to the intensity and darkness of the lead character. Aronofsky's Noah gets drunk, for example, and considers taking drastic measures to eradicate mankind from the planet. Hoping to woo the faith-based crowd, Paramount made and tested as many as half-a-dozen of its own cuts of the movie. "I was upset -- of course," Aronofsky tells The Hollywood Reporter in his first extensive interview about the film's backstory. "No one's ever done that to me."
Both director and studio say that's now all behind them. "There was a rough patch," Aronofsky allows, but at this point, Paramount is fully supporting his version. Vice chair Rob Moore says the studio is launching an advertising campaign designed to communicate that this film -- an exploration of Noah's emotional journey -- flows in large part from Aronofsky's imagination.
Moore says Aronofsky's Noah is not in the more literal vein of the blockbuster Bible series produced for the History channel by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. "They've been very effective in terms of communicating to and being embraced by a Christian audience," says Moore. "This movie has a lot more creativity to it. And therefore, if you want to put it on the spectrum, it probably is more accurate to say this movie is inspired by the story of Noah."
At the same time, he says the film reflects "the key themes of the Noah story in Genesis -- of faith and hope and God's promise to mankind." The studio is aware that a vocal segment of Christian viewers might reject the film over accuracy. Still, Moore says, "Our anticipation is that the vast majority of the Christian community will embrace it."
7:00 AM PST 2/12/2014 by Kim Masters
"I was upset — of course," the director says of Paramount testing alternate versions of the $125 million epic as he and the studio break their silence on efforts to appease a small but vocal segment of the faith-based audience: "Those people can be noisy."
This story first appeared in the Feb. 21 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
When Darren Aronofsky was a 13-year old in Brooklyn, he had one of those unforgettable teachers. Mrs. Fried dressed in pink and drove a pink Mustang; Aronofsky says she was "magical." When she assigned his English class to write about peace, Aronofsky produced a poem about the dove that wings its way to Noah aboard the ark in the Bible. When the poem won a United Nations contest, it sparked Aronofsky's nascent faith in his creative powers.
More than three decades later, the 44-year-old director is completing his epic take on the Noah story, a project he's contemplated ever since he made his breakout indie film Pi in 1998. At that time, he says, he talked to producer Lynda Obst about the idea, prompting her to ask, "Do you realize what you're getting into?"
He didn't. The making of Noah, with Russell Crowe as the lead, turned into a head-on collision between an auteur filmmaker coming off a career-defining success in Black Swan ($330 million global, five Oscar nominations) and a studio working to protect a major investment that is intended to appeal to believers of every religion as well as those without any faith. Paramount Pictures, in partnership with New Regency Productions, is shouldering a budget on the March 28 release of more than $125 million, by far the costliest movie Aronofsky has made. (His previous high was $35 million for The Fountain, which foundered for Warner Bros. in 2006. Black Swan was independently financed and cost just $13 million.)
The trouble began when Paramount, nervous about how audiences would respond to Aronofsky's fantastical world and his deeply conflicted Noah, insisted on conducting test screenings over the director's vehement objections while the film was a work in progress.
Friction grew when a segment of the recruited Christian viewers, among whom the studio had hoped to find Noah's most enthusiastic fans, questioned the film's adherence to the Bible story and reacted negatively to the intensity and darkness of the lead character. Aronofsky's Noah gets drunk, for example, and considers taking drastic measures to eradicate mankind from the planet. Hoping to woo the faith-based crowd, Paramount made and tested as many as half-a-dozen of its own cuts of the movie. "I was upset -- of course," Aronofsky tells The Hollywood Reporter in his first extensive interview about the film's backstory. "No one's ever done that to me."
Both director and studio say that's now all behind them. "There was a rough patch," Aronofsky allows, but at this point, Paramount is fully supporting his version. Vice chair Rob Moore says the studio is launching an advertising campaign designed to communicate that this film -- an exploration of Noah's emotional journey -- flows in large part from Aronofsky's imagination.
Moore says Aronofsky's Noah is not in the more literal vein of the blockbuster Bible series produced for the History channel by Mark Burnett and Roma Downey. "They've been very effective in terms of communicating to and being embraced by a Christian audience," says Moore. "This movie has a lot more creativity to it. And therefore, if you want to put it on the spectrum, it probably is more accurate to say this movie is inspired by the story of Noah."
At the same time, he says the film reflects "the key themes of the Noah story in Genesis -- of faith and hope and God's promise to mankind." The studio is aware that a vocal segment of Christian viewers might reject the film over accuracy. Still, Moore says, "Our anticipation is that the vast majority of the Christian community will embrace it."