Darren Aronofsky seems to be a love him or hate him affair for most people, but count me as a slavishly devoted fan. Unfortunately there aren’t enough of us, because his last brilliant piece of work The Fountain was a massive, brutal box office flop. That’s the thing with Aronofsky’s movies though, they’re out on the edge. They don’t fit into the typical Hollywood mold, they challenge their audience, they take you somewhere new, and sometimes it's a place you don't want to go. At least they did all that until now.

IGN and Variety say that Aronofsky’s next movie will be The Fighter, a fact-based boxing drama starring Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon.

Count me disappointed. There’s nothing more boring, more typical than another lame boxing drama. We get half a dozen boxing movies every year, there’s nowhere new for the genre to go. We’ve covered it. What’s Aronofsky doing screwing around with something lame like this? The Fighter does not sound like an Aronofsky movie.

Here’s my theory… Darren Aronofsky is screwed. His last movie was a box office flop of epic proportions. The Fountain cost a lot of money to make, and earned only slightly less than zero dollars at the box office. That probably means he’s not exactly swimming in offers to fund his next picture. So, you’re a creative, edgy auteur who wants to make another amazing film but can’t get anyone to back it. What do you do? You make a formulaic, Hollywood picture with big stars in it that’s guaranteed to make a lot of money. You finish it, put the money in the bank and use the cash and your newfound earner credibility to make something that’s actually… well… good.

It’s either that or Aronofsky has given up on being interesting and will now spend the next two decades sparing us to death with bland, formula movies that he knows people will actually show up to see. I hope it’s the former.