Christian Bale has signed onto The Fighter, a period boxing drama that’s set to star Mark Wahlberg as “Irish” Mickey Ward.
The project has been in the pipeline for a few years under the direction of Darren Aronofsky, and was originally set to star Brad Pitt in Bale’s role of Ward’s half-brother, Dicky Eklund. After Pitt dropped out, Aronofsky went off to make The Wrestler, and somewhere in the meantime the project was picked up by director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees).
The question is, who is the title referring to? On screen, it’s Mark Wahlberg. But behind the scenes could be a very different story, given the histories of the talent involved: Bale was recently the target of Internet ridicule after an audiotape of him ranting at a director of photography on the set of Terminator Salvation was leaked online. But two years ago, the same thing happened to Russell: a video was leaked online of him throwing a hissy fit at Lily Tomlin on the set of Huckabees.
Wahlberg has worked with Russell twice already, on Huckabees and Three Kings, and he’s not known as someone to cause trouble on sets. But as for the other two, internet rumor-mongers are no doubt hoping an epic showdown finds its way online during filming.
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