Darren Aronofsky‘s stated reason for deciding not to direct 20th Century Fox’s The Wolverine, which would have required working in Japan for over a year, is that he “was not comfortable being away from my family for that length of time.”

Honestly? My first reaction was that Richard Nixon‘s attorney general John Mitchell offered roughly the same reason when he resigned from the Committee to Re-Elect the President on 7.1.72, saying that “he’d been spending too much time away from his wife and daughter.”

An industry friend explains: “Aronofsky was ambivalent about doing this project from the get-go, not EVER liking Chris McQuarrie‘s script, which he was reworking. So the success of Black Swan gave him enough clout to finally leave it without repercussions from Fox. Deadline Hollywood is feeding readers some company line that McQuarrie’s script is not to blame, but it’s one of the reasons [Aronofsky] is taking a walk.”