Looks like Darren Aronofsky's next project, following his hot ticket The Wrestler, will be The Black Swan. Natalie Portman is already attached to star in the supernatural thriller, which could start shooting in the next few months.
Aronofsky first developed the project at Universal in 2007, but the studio eventually dropped it. Post-Wrestler however, Aronofsky is riding a wave of kudos and bankability. The Black Swan, with John McLaughlin's script given a fresh pass by Aronofsky alumnus Mark Heyman, has been doing the studio rounds and is by all accounts getting some positive attention.
The story involves a high-stakes rivalry between two ballerinas (one of whom is Portman) as a big performance approaches. Except that one of the ballerinas is either a spook or an hallucination.
So, The Red Shoes meets The Sixth Sense? Sounds promising, but it does mean that Aronofsky's mooted Robocop reboot is now on the back-burner. Supernatural ballet dancers or cyborg policemen? It's a tough call. But it would have been fascinating to see what Aronofsky did with Officer Murphy.