For basically every movie Darren Aronofsky has made so far, audiences have been advised to gird themselves going in. Because his filmography is a cavalcade of addiction spirals (Requiem For A Dream), balletic body-horror (Black Swan), biblical apocalypses (mother! and Noah), self-destruction (The Wrestler). His last work, The Whale, was another slice of pure Aronofskian drama. But for his next outing, the filmmaker is choosing to work in a different mode. Who’s ready for an Aronofsky film that has a bit more light at the end of that tunnel?
Get ready for Caught Stealing, a star-studded crime thriller adapted from Charlie Huston’s novel. For the filmmaker, it marked an intentional choice to make something a touch breezier than his previous fare. “The state the world’s in right now… There’s a lot going on,” he tells Empire. “So, I wanted to get back to the core ingredients that make movies great — entertainment and fun. I wanted to make something filled with joy and adventure.” He found just that in the tale of Hank (Austin Butler), a former baseball player who finds himself caught in the criminal underbelly of ‘90s New York through a series of misadventures. “I loved the propulsion, the twists, the oddball characters,” the director explains. “It’s a romp.”
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Along the way, audiences will see Zoe Kravitz back in catwoman mode (OK, technically she’s cat-sitting), Bad Bunny wielding a pistol, and Matt Smith with a full-on punk mohawk (yes, it’s his own hair). And at the centre of it all is Butler, ticking another major director off the list. “I think it’ll be exciting for Austin’s fans to see,” teases Aronofsky of a more comedic Butler performance. “His method is to completely disappear into a character — we saw it in Elvis, and he does it with Hank, too.” Bring on the fun-factor.