Reliable Hollywood sources confirm that Russell Crowe has signed on to director Darren Aronofsky's $100+ million telling of the biblical story of Noah and the Great Flood. Entertainment news site Deadline New York reports that an official announcement is expected sometime this week.

The once hoped-for spring start is now July, sources say. ... Crowe also teams up again with familiar names: Arnon Milchan's New Regency which made L.A. Confidential, and Gladiator scribe John Logan who rewrote the Noah script by Aronofsky and Ari Handel. Aronofsky and Logan are repped by CAA which was steering the project, and Crowe is repped by WME.

This is Aronofsky's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated smash Black Swan. Noah now joins a bevy of Biblical films including Steve Spielberg's gritty Moses re-telling for Warner Bros. ... Aronofsky even dropped out of helming The Wolverine for his ambitious dream project which he initially envisioned as a sprawling fantasy epic that could cost north of $130 million. Then again he generated one of the most profitable movies in recent memory, Black Swan, which grossed $315M worldwide on a $12M budget. Aronofsky and Scott Franklin are producing with Mary Parent who's based at Paramount.

This is one of the first signature filmmaker-driven projects from Milchan's "new" New Regency now headed by CEO Brad Weston and president of production Carla Hacken. Since restructuring the company, Milchan has reinserted himself as an active chairman who's rolling up his sleeves again. The aim is to return to the kind of edgy films Milchan used to make, when he produced and funded pictures that included L.A. Confidential, Heat, Fight Club, and JFK.