Coming off his Oscar win for The Fighter, Christian Bale can likely do whatever film he desires. He is currently shooting one of the biggest upcoming blockbusters with Christopher Nolan‘s The Dark Knight Rises, after wrapping the Chinese period drama The 13 Women of Nanjing this spring. He hasn’t made an official decision, and won’t until his last Batman film wraps this fall, but Variety gives us a hint of what it may be.
We got word that he has been cast in Terrence Malick‘s next film, shooting early next year, but there is no mention of it here, so we’ll move on to the next choices. First up is Clint Eastwood‘s A Star is Born with Beyonce Knowles, a role Leonardo DiCaprio was previously circling. After the original landed in 1937, this will be the fourth incarnations after renditions in 1954 and 1976.
We’ve also got word he is circling Michael Mann‘s Gold, a drama about speculators that Paul Haggis was working on. We have very few details on that one, but perhaps the most interesting of the bunch is Spike Lee‘s Oldboy adaptation. He is considering the villain role in that revenge tale that also has Josh Brolin rumored. There is also Darren Aronofsky‘s big-budget Noah, a dark re-telling of the famous Biblical story.
With this news comes word that Bale has dropped The Last Photograph with Sean Penn, which most recently had Zack Snyder attached as a post Man of Steel gig. Lastly, he is also looking at Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper’s Out of the Furnace, a dark murder drama set in 1986 Indiana.
It is refreshing to see Bale opt for more prestigious films rather than the generic action blockbuster (I’m looking at you Terminator: Salvation), but I’m honestly more interested to see if he will do Malick’s film instead of the many above. Out of those, I’d like to see Aronofsky’s Noah retelling as well as Bale re-teaming with Mann. For now, we’ll have to wait until November 2011, when The Dark Knight Rises wraps, for any sort of decision.
Which project do you think Bale should take?