Update: The dance is done and Aronofsky has got his leading man. According to Deadline, Crowe will start building his boat this July and what has been planned as a sprawling Biblical epic will finally set sail.

Like dogs circling each other looking to establish dominance, there’s been a good-natured dance going on for a while now between Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky and Russell Crowe over the issue of the actor starring in Aronofsky’s take on the Biblical epic, Noah. Now it appears things have moved on from the cautious tail swishing to the… Well, you know what dogs do for greetings. So before this metaphor gets dangerously odd, just read on for news that Crowe is now in negotiations to star.

Paramount and New Regency are providing the financing for the project, and the companies are now deep in talks with Crowe’s representatives to hammer out a deal that could see him boarding the ark this July for the start of filming.

While the exact angle that the director plans for the story remains a mystery, we do know that it’ll find Noah as a man who loves all of Earth’s creatures and the planet itself, yet despairs at the way humanity has treated it all.

Aronofsky and Ari Handel wrote the original draft of the script, with Hugo’s John Logan brought in to polish it

Crowe is working hard at the moment, singing for his supper on the set of Tom Hooper’s Les Miserables. He’s been offered several other roles in addition to Noah, including one in Dracula detective story Harker and the villainous role in Akiva Goldsman’s take on A Winter’s Tale. He’ll next be seen in The Man With The Iron Fists, then Les Mis and Broken City before he also shows up as Jor-El in Man Of Steel.