Darren Aronofsky wants to make a musical

Last Updated on December 14, 2022

Darren Aronofsky has made 16mm thrillers, big-budget biblical epics, sports dramas, and psychological horrors. But there’s one genre he’s hoping to tackle soon, and it’s an unexpected one: the musical.

Darren Aronofsky recently sat down with The A.V. Club to promote his latest film, The Whale. On the topic of the director potentially helming his first musical, he said, “I would love to and I’ve talked to many people about it. And I’ve come close to a few ideas. It’s a very tricky thing because music from musicals is not popular music anymore. So what do you do? I think Hamilton was brilliant because Lin-Manuel Miranda fused hip-hop with musical music. And so he had this breakthrough that was really brilliant. But figuring that angle of it, of what the music would be, where it comes from, is the big challenge. But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it. And hopefully one day I could figure something out.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Aronofsky does have a love for the genre, citing West Side Story as his favorite. (Too bad Spielberg claimed that one!) He is also in the process of trying to get a stage musical version of his 2010 film Black Swan going. Regarding whether it would ever make it to Broadway, Aronofsky said, “We’ll see what happens. But we’re working on it.” Well, a swan is at least better than cats.

A musical by way of Darren Aronofsky does sound intriguing. Maybe the world isn’t ready for Requiem for a Dream: The Musical! but an original idea would certainly generate some buzz. Regardless, hopefully his idea doesn’t go the way of Batman: Year One.

Aronofsky’s latest, The Whale, is making the awards circuit, primarily for its star, Brendan Fraser. Fraser recently earned a Golden Globe nomination and is currently the frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Actor. The movie is also garnering attention at the box office, setting the year’s per-theater average.

What do you think? Could Darren Aronofsky pull off a full-blown musical? What would you expect to see in it? Let us know in the comments below!