The surprise winner of this year’s Venice Film Festival, Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler has squeezed into the remaining 2008 release schedule, due out on December 19th in the US. The film, focusing on a washed-up wrestler’s attempts to redeem his career and his estranged family, exceeded expectations, with the director’s usually frenzied style being pared back to allow the cast to work their magic. Indeed, Micky Rourke is already being predicted to nab an Oscar nomination at the least, hence the film’s release date.

This is of course great news for Aronofsky. Good advance press, as well as a subject matter that is strangely appealing to many young men, should ensure a good profit, which may free up one of America’s best directors to continue making experimental films like Pi and The Fountain. Sadly, the director is still lined up to direct a boxing pic (can he revitalise it in the same way he has done with The Wrestler?), and afterwards remake Robocop.

However, in a lengthy interview with Slash Film, Aronofsky speaks about some other ideas he’s thrashing about. One is a “religious” film about Noah, the man who, according to the Bible, saved all life on the planet by gathering up a couple from each species and placing them on an Ark before a huge flood hits. Aronofsky and The Fountain writer Ari Handel have written a script about the “first environmentalist”. This sounds like an interesting project, and hopefully a better one than Evan Almighty. No work has been done on the project yet, however, so don’t keep your hopes up.