Darren Aronofsky will direct Michael Chabon's Nazi-fighting magicians pilot for HBO

Darren Aronofsky may have balked at directing The Wolverine, but he’s agreed to take on another project about supernaturally gifted outsiders by directing the Hobgoblin pilot for HBO. As previously reported, the show from Michael Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman will take the author’s knack for making Judaism seem like some sort of cryptic, cosmic force shrouded in intrigue and once more apply it to a genre tale, one about magicians and con artists engaging in sleight-of-hand subterfuge to battle the Nazis, such as that time they briefly delayed the Holocaust by distracting Hitler with the old linked brass rings trick. And if we were merely cautiously optimistic before, well, Aronofsky’s involvement makes us all the way optimistic—kind of like a magician who thinks he can stop the Nazis.