Jared Leto to Star in Blumhouse Productions' Adrift With Darren Aronofsky Directing

The 2000 film Requiem for a Dream served as a breakout endeavor for both director Darren Aronofsky and star Jared Leto, as the horrifying and effective depictions of drug addiction opened up a world of opportunities for both, with Deadline confirming that the pair are reuniting for the new film Adrift. Much like how Requiem fully embraced the unsettling subject matter to serve as a thriller, though kept its story rooted in real-world horrors of addiction to a variety of substances, Adrift sounds as though it will once again lean into the realm of psychological horrors, a realm which Aronofsky has proven a mastery over.

Deadline describes the film, "The story is set in the dead calm of the open sea, where a fishing boat discovers an abandoned yacht with a strange distress call. A deckhand agrees to take lone control of it while it's towed into port, but he soon discovers why the rest of his more experienced crew members call it a 'Ghost Ship.'"

The new film is based on a story by Ringu author Koji Suzuki, with Aronofsky and Luke Dawson writing the script. Jason Blum will serve as a producer under his Blumhouse Productions banner.

Proving just how important Requiem for a Dream was for Aronofsky's career, following the film's release, he began developing a new Batman movie, though that project ultimately fell through. Christopher Nolan instead brought Batman Begins to life, which had a number of notable similarities to the themes Aronofsky had aimed to explore.

At the time, the filmmaker wanted to fully embrace the macabre nature of the Dark Knight, aiming to honor the spirit of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

"I understood that [with] comics, there's room for all different types of titles, but I think Hollywood at that time was still in the Golden Age of comics, and they were still just doing the classic titles in classic ways," the filmmaker told Yahoo! Movies of the project back in 2017. "I always wanted Joaquin Phoenix for Batman."

Interestingly, Phoenix would go on to win an Oscar for playing the Caped Crusader's iconic rival in Joker, with Leto having played the Joker for Suicide Squad. Meanwhile, Aronofsky would go on to deliver psychologically twisted and critically acclaimed films like Black Swan and mother!.

Stay tuned for details on Adrift.

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