LATEST NEWS

Updates on Terrence Malick's 'Voyage of Time' + His Other New Film

by Alex Billington
May 25, 2011
Source: ComingSoon

Though he still won't step out in public, director Terrence Malick is definitely in the spotlight this week, as his new film The Tree of Life just won the Cannes Palme d'Or over the weekend. ComingSoon caught up with the film's producers at its recent Hollywood premiere and got a few new quotes/updates from them about the future of Malick and his upcoming projects, since he has a couple of things going on. Not only did they confirm that the Voyage of Time IMAX movie, a documentary spin-off from Tree of Life, was still in the works, but also that his next film (that's already been shot) will be completely different, not so abstract.

When asked about Voyage of Time, which we've heard all kinds of odd/unconfirmed things about for a while, producer Bill Pohlad responded with an enthusiastic answer. "It's still a strong desire of Terry's, and we're all kind of working on getting it together… There will be footage that we shot during the course of Tree of Life that we shot during that movie, but it won't be that same footage." This IMAX documentary would supposedly focus more on the "history of the universe" sequence that was included in Tree of Life. Producer Dede Gardner confirms that it will, but also adds, "it's going to change, too. There's some new stuff getting shot." I'm very curious to find out what exactly this doc will be in the end, if it does come together.

As for the other Terrence Malick project, you may remember hearing about it shooting in rural Oklahoma, and we even featured a first look photo, too. It's an upcoming romantic drama that still remains untitled, but has a great cast including: Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper and Olga Kurylenko. The Tree of Life star Jessica Chastain is in it briefly, too, but admits she doesn't even know if she'll make the final cut after Malick's endless editing. "I'm in one film and I was on another set. I don't know if I'm going to be in that film. It was a small [part]. I was only there for two days."

The Tree of Life is a very abstract film, giving audiences a glimpse of the formation of the universe while at the same time focusing on a more intimate story about a family in 1950's Texas. The response has been somewhat indecisive due to the more experiential nature of the film, but for those concerned about Malick going abstract forever, this new romantic drama is apparently much different. Chastain, who also spoke with ComingSoon at the premiere, talked about how the experience working on the second project was different:

"He constantly changes and that was exciting for me to see," she added, "Because the one I did with Ben Affleck, I did hear, 'Cut!'. I remember the first time I was there when, at one point, they stopped it and I looked at him like, 'That's a first! What's going on?' But as an artist, he's constantly evolving and is never set in his ways. He never says, 'This is the way to make a movie'. I'll bet you that the one after this, there'll be even another thing different."

Even though The Tree of Life wasn't my favorite film from Cannes this year, I will certainly say I'm still fascinated by Terrence Malick, who presents such grand ideas with his films that are almost always beautiful to look at. I'm curious to see this Voyage of Time doc, which supposedly VFX veteran Douglas Trumbull is also working on, mostly because that was one of my favorite sequences from Tree of Life. And of course, I'm interested in his next film, which is apparently a much more straightforward romantic drama, so we'll have to keep on the lookout for that and will let you know when we have any more updates on either. For now, don't forget that Malick's Palme d'Or winning The Tree of Life finally hits limited theaters starting this weekend and will expand throughout the summer - head to Fox Searchlight's website for release cities.

Find more posts: Indies, Movie News, Opinions

1 Comment

New comments are no longer allowed on this post.