Trivia / Noah

• All-Star Cast: You got three Oscar winners, two actors from two franchises and Ray Winstone in a Biblical movie.
• Banned in China: Aside from China, it is banned in several Islamic countries because it contradicts the Islamic teachings where Noah is considered as one of the important prophets and depicting them is generally forbidden.
• Creator-Driven Successor: To Aronofsky's The Fountain. This article even points out several of the similarities between the two.
• Doing It for the Art: This was Aronofsky's passion project, something he's been trying to get off the ground since 2007. Even in post-production, he made ILM go through very extensive work just to get visual effects right. The particularly challenging process involved creating entirely new species of animals to represent creatures that would have gone extinct.
• Executive Meddling: Averted. Not wanting to upset the potential religious audience, the studio held many test screenings of different cuts of the movie without Darren Aronofsky's permission. Eventually, however, it was decided to go with Aronofsky's original cut. They did, however, add a disclaimer to the film, much to Aronofsky's chagrin.
• Fake Brit: As the English Emma Watson, Ray Winstone, and Douglas Booth use their natural accents, the Americans Jennifer Connelly and Logan Lerman and the New Zealander Russell Crowe affect English-sounding accents to match. Madison Davenport, who plays Na'el, is from Texas but affects an English-sounding accent too. Some critics noted the ambiguous setting of the film - where it could either be the past or the future (which was confirmed by Emma Watson) - and wondered if the actors had attempted to do a mixture of American and English to suggest how the accent had evolved in the future (Logan's Run had used a similar idea).
• Playing Against Type: Director example, though it is played with. Darren Aronofsky is known for dark, gritty Mind Screw dramas. So a Biblical epic seems like a different turn for him. That being said, it still feels like an Aronofsky movie.
• Production Posse: Mark Margolis, who voices Magnog, has appeared in all of Darren Aronofsky's films.
• Promoted Fanboy: Emma Watson was a big fan of Darren Aronofsky.
• Those Two Actors:
  • Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly co-star as husband and wife for a second time after A Beautiful Mind.
  • Nick Nolte and Jennifer Connelly collaborated for their third film after Mulholland Falls and Hulk.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Christian Bale and Michael Fassbender were both offered the role of Noah.
  • Saoirse Ronan and Dakota Fanning were both in the running to play Ila. Dakota was the preferred choice but she couldn't fit it into her schedule, and Emma Watson was cast. Bella Heathcoate lobbied hard for the part and, although she impressed, didn't get it. Amusingly enough a few years later she would get to play Douglas Booth's love interest in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
  • Val Kilmer, Liam Neeson and Liev Schreiber were all in the running to play Tubal-Cain.
  • The original script portrays most of the characters in a much different way:
    • Noah is cast in an even more gray light than he is in the final film. First, when Akkad (the Cainite king in the script) comes to him, he promises to take 25 men of Akkad's choosing in the Ark together with their wives if Akkad gets his men to build ships of their own. When the time comes, Akkad comes to Noah and even helps him fight through the crowds who are left to die, but Noah reveals the bargain was false. Later, as Na'el (called Na'eltamuk) reaches the Ark, Noah personally throws her out.
    • Akkad himself was much more fleshed out than Tubal-Cain. When first Noah had the visions, he summoned Akkad to a plateau to warn his people. Akkad first listens and asks what to do, but then dismisses the Creator's demands as impossible and whacks Noah over the head, then butchers his animals. Ten years later, as he sees the migrations, Akkad goes to Noah, treating him as an old friend, states that he has repented (though a tirade of hubris follows) and makes the bargain with him, then upholds his end and gets his people to build ships. Later he protects Ham and Na'eltamuk against his own people even after pulled from his mount and even helps Noah get back to the Ark. It is only after Noah's deception that he orders his people to stop making boats and attack Noah's Ark in retaliation. Also, his desire to kill Noah and assert domination over his family is fueled by his thirst for revenge.
    • Seth's descendants live a nomadic life, but have a temporary stables that serves to harbor injured animals. The last of those animals is a one-horned bison calf that the Cainites hunt for the horn. Noah and Naameh tend to its wounds, but later Akkad and his men kill it. Akkad wears the calf's severed horn, with which Ham kills him aboard the Ark.
    • Noah's motivation for destroying mankind is more elaborated upon: as the reptiles arrive, Japheth starts playing with a pair of lizards, putting them in his satchel to carry them around. He ends up accidentally killing one of them while trying to catch it. Noah is furious at first, but then starts thinking that murder is inherent to man. Therefore, as the boy tearfully apologizes, he tells him it's not his fault and he could not help it. It is only then that Noah breaks his earlier promise to Ham to find wives for him and Japheth.
    • Ham and Shem both are much more willing to kill Noah, Ham out of revenge, Shem to protect his children. The two end up killing many species who fight on Noah's side as Ila is giving birth, including with different manners of traps they prepared.
    • Na'el's fate is even more tragic - after bonding with Ham, she is led by him toward the Ark. In the forest, he tells her the Ark is built by his father and is overheard by the Cainites who are hiding nearby. They swarm the pair and separate them with the intent to use them as ransom. The two are saved by none other than Akkad himself, then reach the Ark with the help of the Watchers. As Naameh greets Na'eltamuk, Noah willingly throws the girl out of the Ark and orders Ham to stay in or be left to die if he goes after her.
    • The "raven vs. dove" story is also elaborated upon. At first, Noah orders Japheth to release the raven (the smartest bird, basically) to search for land, but it returns with nothing. Japheth then suggests to Ila that they send a dove, because the raven is too smart for his own good and despairs as it sees the infinite ocean and refuses to fly further, while the dove would dumbly fly until it found something.
• Word of God: Pun aside, the cast and director have said that the film has an ambiguous setting that could take place in a thousand years in the past or the future.

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