Darren Aronofsky in talks with Christian Bale for Noah

Darren Aronofsky hasn’t had the easiest time selling studios on his ambitious epic based on the biblical story of Noah and his ark. Even though he’s got production company New Regency on board for half the budget (currently estimated at about $130 million), finding a distributor to back the project hasn’t been easy. Enter: Christian Bale.

In an effort to add some star power to his film, Aronofsky is in talks with Bale to star as Noah in his film. There’s only one catch – Aronofsky doesn’t have the money yet to offer him a specific salary. The best they can do at this point is formally “attach” himself to the project with an understanding that once a studio comes aboard to seal the financing, Bale’s deal would be worked out.

As it stands, Paramount, Summit and Fox are the three studios most strongly considering NOAH and Fox clearly makes the most sense (they have a working relationship with both Aronofsky and New Regency), but they’re also the most risk-averse of the group.

If you look at some of the art Aronofsky already has commissioned for NOAH, the character already sort of looks like Bale so that at least make sense. But the actor is in the beginning stages of a very long DARK KNIGHT RISES shoot and when he’ll be available to shoot NOAH remains unclear.