I took a business law class decades ago as an undergrad. I have no idea now WHY I took it, but I did. Most of what I heard and read in that class is now long forgotten, but one phrase stuck: implied warranty of merchantability.
Feel free to read the wiki but here’s the part I recall from the professor’s lecture: if you’re selling vacuum cleaners, there is a reasonable expectation that they will provide suction sufficient to pick something up and deposit it somewhere for disposal. If you are selling paint, there’s a reasonable expectation that the liquid will transfer pigment and adhere to some surface. Those expectations are part of the legal implied warranty of merchantability that is part of the Universal Commercial Code in the U.S.
I have no argument with Darren Aronofsky making any movie he set out to make, with any plot and character development he prefers. My issue is that making a movie about a universal flood, with a gigantic boat and a guy named Noah seems a violation of the implied warranty of merchantability when those elements of the movie are clearly from a book that sets an expectation of certain basic things being true… the flood was a judgment from God, being a major given.
Making a movie about a universal flood, a gigantic boat and a guy named Noah while ignoring that, oh, by the way, that story is from a spiritually significant book dealing with a major character called “God” is a lot like making a movie about Minny Jackson, a black plumber’s assistant in the south of the 50s and calling it “The Help.” You’d feel a little ripped off if you read Kathryn Stockett’s book and then got that as the plot of a film “inspired by” it.
Make all the films about universal floods and gigantic boats you want, but change the name of your character from Noah to something that doesn’t implicitly violate the implied warranty of merchantability. Call him Ralph, or Sol or anything that is not intended to mislead people into thinking your story might have a main character called God.
Your vacuum doesn’t suck, Darren, but I am hearing that your movie does.