Major drama surrounds Darren Aronofsky's bibilical movie

Reports of a director squabbling with a studio over the final cut of a film is pretty old hat in Hollywood. But when that director is Darren Aronofsky and that movie is an epic tale of biblical proportions, literally, well that's noteworthy. Throw in the fact that a trailer for the film, Noah, has reportedly leaked online and you've got headline-worthy stuff going.

First and foremost, here's the scoop on the supposed bad blood between Darren Aronofsky and Paramount Pictures: Aronofsky is reportedly upset about Paramount demanding some changes to Noah, after test audiences in several cities didn't respond all that well to a screening of the film, which stars Russell Crowe, Emma Watson, Anthony Hopkins and Jennifer Connelly. The Hollywood Reporter has the whole scoop on the situation, pointing out that Aronofsky doesn't normally get "in deep" with big studios, but he's sure in deep now.

I'm curious about what, exactly, upset the test audiences? Certainly anything religious isn't going to sit well with everyone, but what if Darren Aronofsky took things to his signature darker level with Noah? Personally I'm interested to find out. This could wind up being a $125 million disaster of a disaster movie - or it could be genius.

There's more to this drama-filled story. This week, a trailer for Noah leaked online. Now, I'm not going to post the video here for obvious reasons, but I assure you, it can be found. I'll save you some time: It looks like it was shot by a four year old. It's clearly a shaky cell phone video and you can hear an audience cheering as the trailer plays. As for the actual trailer, well, it's not overly impressive, but the video quality is so horrendous I honestly can't say much more.

I'm wondering: Was this trailer leaked on purpose? The timing certainly seems suspicious enough. Noah isn't set to open until March. Reports of trouble surrounding the film reached a fevered pitch just days ago and now we suddenly have this "leaked" trailer? Seems a little too coincidental to me - how about you?

Photo courtesy of The Los Angeles Times