The cinephile community was left scratching their heads when the news hit that indie auteur Darren Aronofsky would be helming what everyone essentially believed to be Wolverine 2. With a bit of time having passed since that announcement, more details have emerged about the project and fans and admirers of Aronofsky are starting to come around. Straight from the filmmakers mouth, Aronofsky speaks with Dave Poland about his decision to direct the film, his optimism for it and it’s relation to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

“I’m just trying to have fun, and I think for the first time in my life… every single film I’ve done so far, I’ve been the only person in the room who wants to make the movie… and I kind of am excited about doing a film where I’m actually… everyone wants to make it, and just to see what the experience is like, and see if I can do what I do in that world. It’s not like I’m going to change my process, I’m going to be working with the same team, and really trying to do something very, very different and see what happens.”

On being hired:

“I think I’m being hired because of who I am, I’m not being hired to turn into someone. I’m being hired to do what I do.”

Aronofsky’s take on Wolverine in relation to the previous films?

“By the way, take off the number 2, it has nothing to do with that. It’s a standalone piece that has nothing to do with anything in the whole franchise or in that universe.”

Having earned international fame with his Vengeance Trilogy, consisting of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook has consistently impressed us with each and every one of his films. It should come as no surprise then that any news of his possible English-language debut is always a hot topic. Prison Break (TV) star Wentworth Miller is apparently much more than meets the eye, as he’s written a, presumably good, script titled Stoker, under the pseudonym Ted Foulke. The Ridley and Tony Scott company Scott Free Productions picked up the rights to the script earlier this year and have since set up the film at Fox Searchlight with Jodie Foster and Carey Mulligan attached.

“After India’s father mysteriously dies and her estranged uncle comes to live with her and her mother, people start to go missing in her hometown and India discovers that her uncle may be the cause.”

Anyone who has seen Chan-Wook’s work will agree that this sounds like it could be perfect material for the filmmaker to delve into, in English or Korean for that matter. It should also be noted that Miller (aka Foulk) has also written a prequel to Stoker titled Uncle Charlie.

indieWIRE’s ThePlaylist adds an interesting find to all of this as Pajiba has a long list of projects in which Johnny Depp is supposedly attached to and contains none other than Stoker. We can presume the role for Johnny Depp would be that of Uncle Charlie. Take that report with a grain of salt, however.

The last official news that had surfaced about Park Chan-Wook’s next film was his planned remake of the 2005 Costa Gavras film Le Couperet (The Ax), which is an adaptation of the Donald E. Westlake novel of the same name (The Ax). The film and novel follow a downsized chemist who loses his job to outsourcing and two years later, still being jobless, decides to eliminate his competition by any means necessary.

It’s entirely possible that this remake could be put on the back-burner and focus given to Stoker, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Hot on the heels of the release date announcement of Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours from Fox Searchlight, we now know that Darren Aronofsky’s forthcoming film, Black Swan, will hit limited theaters December 1st, also from Fox Searchlight, exactly 3 months after its world premiere at the 67th Venice Film Festival. Two great announcements for two films that will surely be excellent.

A psychological thriller set in the world of New York City ballet, Black Swan stars Natalie Portman as Nina, a featured dancer who finds herself locked in a web of competitive intrigue with a new rival at the company (Kunis). Black Swan takes a thrilling and, at times, terrifying journey through the psyche of a young ballerina whose starring role as the duplicitous swan queen turns out to be a part for which she becomes frighteningly perfect.

127 Hours, Danny Boyle’s highly anticipated follow-up to his Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire, will be released by Fox Searchlight on November 5th.

127 Hours is the true story of mountain climber Aron Ralston’s (Franco) remarkable adventure to save himself after a fallen boulder crashes on his arm and traps him in an isolated canyon in Utah. Over the next five days Ralston examines his life and survives the elements to finally discover he has the courage and the wherewithal to extricate himself by any means necessary, scale a 65 foot wall and hike over eight miles before he is finally rescued.

A nice looking poster has been released for the fourthcoming film by Mark Romanek, Never Let Me Go, starring Keira Knightley, Andrew Garfield, Carey Mulligan, Nathalie Richard, Sally Hawkins, Andrea Riseborough and Charlotte Rampling. Screenwriter Alex Garland (28 Days Later, Sunshine) penned the script based on the book by Kazuo Ishiguro that was named one of TIME’s Best 100 Novels [from 1923 to present time]. Director Spike Jonze, being friends with Romanek, saw some early footage of the film back in November of ’09, and said;

I don’t know what I can and cant say about it but I love the story. Even just a few scenes he showed me on their own were really moving. The combination of a science fiction film handled very subtly and naturalistically that also made me cry and is beautifully photographed is a trifecta.

The beautiful photography he’s talking about can be credited to exceptional cinematographer Adam Kimmel, who shot Capote, Lars and The Real Girl, and Jonze’s short film I’m Here. (Fun Fact: Andrew Garfield plays the protagonist robot in Jonze’s short)

In case you missed it, be sure to check out the incredibly beautiful trailer that was released two weeks ago.

In his highly acclaimed novel ‘Never Let Me Go’, Kazuo Ishiguro created a remarkable story of love, loss and hidden truths. In it he posed the fundamental question: What makes us human? Now director Mark Romanek and writer Alex Garland bring Ishiguro’s hauntingly poignant and emotional story to the screen. Kathy (Mulligan) Tommy (Garfield) and Ruth (Knightley) live in a world and a time that feel familiar to us, but are not quite like anything we know. They spend their childhood at Hailsham, a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. When they leave the shelter of the school and the terrible truth of their fate is revealed to them, they must also confront the deep feelings of love, jealousy and betrayal that threaten to pull them apart.

Never Let Me Go will be released in theaters September 15th.