Darren Aronofsky in talks to direct spy movie Red Sparrow

Despite bowing out of The Wolverine and suffering a series of on-set woes on Noah , Darren Aronofsky still can't get enough of the movies - and he's currently negotiating his next film, an adaptation of spy book Red Sparrow .

Written by Jason Matthews, the book's set in modern day Russia, home to intelligence officer Dominika Egorova. She's enlisted as a Sparrow, a trained seductress, alongside CIA operative Nathaniel Nash.

There's plenty of snappy banter as the two officers rub each other up the wrong way, and then Dominika makes things difficult for herself by going rogue against her employers.

Aronofsky's yet to sign a deal to direct the flick, but 20th Century Fox is apparently keen to get it into production (having bought the book for seven figures), so expect news soon.

As for a potential cast, considering Aronofsky's fantastic work with Natalie Portman on Black Swan , we wouldn't be surprised to see her offered the role of Dominik. Then again, Mila Kunis can already speak Russian...

Josh Winning has worn a lot of hats over the years. Contributing Editor at Total Film, writer for SFX, and senior film writer at the Radio Times. Josh has also penned a novel about mysteries and monsters, is the co-host of a movie podcast, and has a library of pretty phenomenal stories from visiting some of the biggest TV and film sets in the world. He would also like you to know that he "lives for cat videos..." Don't we all, Josh. Don't we all.