Mark Wahlberg Talks Aronofsky’s The Fighter, The Departed 2 and 3

According to Mark Wahlberg, Darren Aronofsky’s The Fighter will begin filming this October. Awesome. You may remember that the film, a biopic on badass pugilist “Irish” Micky Ward, gained considerable traction in the press last year when Wahlberg and others compared it to a “new Raging Bull.” Brad Pitt later signed on to co-star as Ward’s brother/trainer, which was a welcome surprise after his casting debacle on Aronofsky’s The Fountain.

“I’ve been training for two years now. I’m ready,” Wahlberg told MTV. “I want to look like a champ, not a chump. …I want to do [Ward] proud. The guy did everything I wish I could have done. He came from nothing, went on to win the world title with all the odds stacked against him.”

Ward fought throughout the mid-’80s and ’90s, but he’s best remembered for three battles with Arturo Gotti in the early Oughts, two of which went down as the greatest in the history of the sport. Ward lost each one, but, well click here to for a refresher. Earlier this year, Aronofsky (Pi, Requiem for a Dream) wrapped up filming on the white trash indie epic, The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke (release date TBA), so if all goes as planned, we’ll be getting one helluva manly double feature that will turn us all into jittery pacifists. Somebody combine the Requiem for a Dream score with the YouTube link above and cause some goosebumps.

Wahlberg also updated on The Departed 2…

“They’re [still] developing it,” Wahlberg sighed. “If it can be better than the first, then great. I’ll be all for it. I’m not interested in going for the paycheck. I love ‘Godfather 2’ but, then again, I don’t like ‘Godfather 3.’”

Everybody wants to be The Godfather 2 these days, eh? Nothing revelatory in the quote above, but he also mentions the possibility of a Departed 3 (a prequel a la Infernal Affairs 2) as well…

“We may do another one, because it’s based on a Hong Kong film ['Infernal Affairs'], and there is a trilogy. So we may do a sequel with a new cast, and a prequel and bring back the rest of the guys…”

That would make for some heavy dream team assembling.

Discuss: Can Aronofsky/Wahlberg/Pitt reach the greatness of Raging Bull? Against tough odds, Infernal Affairs was a solid trilogy—do you think The Departed 2 and The Departed 3 will ever happen?