Darren Aronofsky appeared on the Howard Stern show today, and was again downplaying the upcoming Robocop reboot/remake, which he is attached to develop and direct for MGM. When asked if he was directing the next Robocop movie, Aronofsky replied “Oh, I don’t know. We’ll See. We’re working on a screenplay. So we’re developing it but we don’t have a screenplay yet. We’re working hard on it.”

The filmmaker was also making some strange/vague comments about the project at The Wrestler junket last week. Other blogs have already begun to speculate that Darren is either off the project, or it just isn’t going to happen anymore. It’s a little to early to jump to conclusions. Darren is a n extremely sly guy, and I’m convinced that this just might be his way of redirecting the questions back to his current project.

Aside from that, Aronofsky revealed a bunch of interesting tidbits during the interview:

The Budget for The Wrestler was about $7 million, but the budget was a whopping $19 million when Nicolas Cage was attached to star. We’ve talked a little bit about this in our Toronto interview with Aronofsky, but he does say that “two days after we won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival [Nicolas Cage] sent a text saying that ‘The Ram was always Mickey, congratulations.’ He is real class.” … “I thought Nic could have done it, but I had worked so long working with Mickey that it was just the Ram in my head was Mickey.”

Tomorrow, Darren is making the journey to Stamford Connecticut to show The Wrestler to WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. I don’t think they would be making such a reach-out if the Fox Searchlight/WWE weren’t interested in doing some kind of promotion for the film.

On Jennifer Connelly‘s double penetration (/Film commenters have corrected me, it’s actually “ass-to-ass”) scene in Requiem for a Dream: “That was a tough night. It was a full night of shooting, and after my DP turned to me and said ‘Darren, thats the most fucked up thing we’ve ever done.'” … “I was just very strait up. It’s based on a novel by Hubert Shely Jr. It’s a very very hardcore novel. One the day of, she started to get very nervous. And I said to her, ‘Look, this film is exactly what the book is. It’s about going as dark and as far as you can go. And if we don’t go that far, we’re undermining the book and the whole point of doing the movie.”

Dave Chappelle was Aronofsky’s first choice for the role of Tyrone in Requiem for a Dream: “I always wanted a comedian for that role because when I read it in the book I thought the guy had a lot of humor. I actually went to Chappelle first and I begged Chappelle to do it.” I’m glad that Marlon Wayans got the part, because I just can’t imagine what Requiem for a Dream would have been like with Chappelle.