Russell Crowe is officially in talks to be Darren Aronofsky’s Noah!

Nearly a month ago we reported that Darren Aronofsky was hoping to convince Russell Crowe and Liam Neeson to join his non-traditional ancient epic/passion project NOAH, and now it appears to be that half of his wish is close to coming true.

“Previous reports indicated that Aronofsky was eyeing Crowe for the role, while the actor teased his Twitter followers that he was eyeing Aronofsky right back. Now both sides are actively working on a deal that would find Crowe boarding the ark for a July shoot.”

This might honestly be the best news I’ve encountered in a long time.  Crowe can bring the tenderness, sorrow, and rage all on his own, and Aronofsky has never failed to inspire anything less than a quantum leap forward in the quality of performance his lead actors/actresses put forth.

I’m salivating already, and the damn thing hasn’t even formally cast its lead actor yet.  It’s going to be an awfully long wait until the yet-unannounced release date…