Darren Aronofsky Explains Why He Didn’t Direct ‘Wolverine’ Or ‘Man Of Steel’

Possibly my favorite non-news news items are the ones where people speculate on what they COULD have done in Hollywood. Like the ol’ “TOM SELLECK COULD HAVE BEEN INDIANA JONES!!1!!!1!!” tidbit. On Josh Horowitz’s podcast, director Darren Aronofsky revealed his reasons for leaving The Wolverine:

“I loved the script and I thought the film came out great. I just had … it was a hard time in my life,” Aronofsky told MTV’s Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “It was complicated. I couldn’t leave New York for that long an amount of time. And, to be honest, the possibility of ‘Noah’ had started to emerge, and here was something I’d been thinking about for years. I was really excited by that.”

His Facebook status says “It’s Complicated” but the timing says “Divorce.” Separation from Rachel Weisz not withstanding, Aronofsky says he also had “a few conversations” with Christopher Nolan about Man of Steel, but that the directing job ultimately went to Zack Snyder:

“I thought Zack was a great choice, and I loved his ‘Watchmen’ movie,” said Aronofsky. “I thought it was great. I thought that as a fan of the comic, you couldn’t hope for a better interpretation. I liked the orthodoxy of it.”

I’m not sure what he means by that. It doesn’t seem like he’s saying “Well, screw that nerd and his nerd movie and his nerd friends, NERDS,” but I find the topic of directing the next Superman curious at all, since it wasn’t going to shoot in New York state (like most of Noah), and also, wasn’t he shooting Noah? Saying “Well I coulda directed this one thing and then I didn’t” is like me telling you I was disappointed he wasn’t going to be reuniting with Hugh Jackman for The Wolverine, but then I saw The Wolverine and I was not disappointed.

Anyway, Aronofsky not wanting to leave New York to direct Wolverine Vs. Ninjas is not quite as pathetic as McG not getting to direct Superman Returns because he was afraid of flying to Australia. (Of course, we got Supernatural instead, but I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to mock McG. HIS NAME IS MC G.)

While I don’t understand the boner for having Darren Aronofsky direct a superhero film, I like Aronofsky’s movies (though I haven’t seen Noah yet) and he’s not as terrible a choice to direct a film as, say, McG. Perhaps I can convince Darren Aronofksy to direct the Secret Six script I haven’t written, that stars The Rock as Bane and Clive Owen as Deadshot whether they know it or not.

Via MTV News

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