Darren Aronofsky's Life After 'Wolverine' May Include a Look at 'Human Nature'

Last year, Darren Aronofsky did the unthinkable - he turned his low-budget, artsy, passion project into his calling card. Typically, directors of Aronofsky's bend (that is, people in the business for more than just money, fame, and blow) have to stoop to high-concept thrillers or comic book movies to be taken seriously by major studios, who in turn fund their work, but Aronofsky's unprecedented success with "Black Swan" (which made over $300 million worldwide) helped him sidestep the need to direct an "X-Men" or "Robocop" movie.

So what does one do next? Vulture has reason to believe that a science fiction film with George Clooney might be in the cards.

The project, called "Human Nature" (not to be confused with the one Charlie Kaufman film no one remembers), comes from a spec script by Jeff Welch. Clooney would play a man who is cryogenically frozen, apparently forgotten about, and wakes up to a world in which humans are pets to another species. Sounds ripe for Aronofsky's unusual trip down "I-can't-believe-what-I'm-seeing" lane.

This would mark a return to smarter science fiction for Clooney, who previously starred in Steven Soderbergh's massively underrated "Solaris."

Welch has almost no credits to his name, so congratulations to him for getting a script in front of Aronofsky, who has a strong enough track record that I'm not too worried about a no-name screenwriter providing the impetus.

The major concern here, creatively, is the presence of producer Akiva Goldsman, a sometimes-screenwriter who has the unique distinction of winning an Oscar (for "A Beautiful Mind") and writing "Batman & Robin" mere years apart.

He's produced a few decent films along the way - "I Am Legend," "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and "Fair Game" come to mind - but displays intensely mainstream taste and hasn't really shown the ability to support electic filmmaking of any kind, which Aronofsky certainly traffics in.