EXCLUSIVE: Twenty years after helping launch each other’s film careers with Requiem for a Dream, Jared Leto and Darren Aronofsky look to have found a project to reteam on. Sources tell Deadline one of 2021’s first big packages is coming together as Leto has attached himself to star in Adrift, with Aronofsky on board to direct. Jason Blum will produce through his Blumhouse Proudctions along with Leto and Emma Ludbrook via Leto’s production company Paradox, as will Carla Hacken.
The film is based on a short story by Koji Suzuki, who wrote The Ring. Aronofsky and Luke Dawson will be writing the script. Insiders close to the package say Leto identified the project and he and Ludbrook pursued the rights for 10 years before bringing to Blum and Aronofsky.
The story is set in the dead calm of the open sea, where a fishing boat discovers an abandoned yacht with a strange distress call. A deckhand agrees to take lone control of it while it’s towed into port, but soon he discovers why the rest of his more experienced crew members call it a “Ghost Ship.”
The package went out on the market early in the week and already has several buyers circling. Insiders add that while they expect it to land, it will not be Aronofsky’s next film as he is set to direct A24’s The Whale with Brendan Fraser in March.
Leto has The Little Things for Warner Bros., starring opposite Denzel Washington and Rami Malek. That film is dropping Friday in theaters and on HBO Max. He also is developing a handful of projects including a sequel to Tron: Legacy, which has him attached to star and Garth Davis on board to direct. He also is on board to be a part of the A-list ensemble in Ridley Scott’s Gucci and has the Apple TV+ series WeCrashed, which he will shoot after Gucci. He also has the Spider-Man spinoff Morbius and just shot a scene for Zack Snyder’s Justice League where he reprises his role as the Joker.
Leto is repped by WME and Aronofsky is repped by CAA.
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