03. Goodbye “Q,” Hello “Voyage of Time”
Apparently, the birth of the universe sections of “The Tree of Life” weren’t enough for Malick, and rumors began circulating in early 2009 that a parallel project was underway called “The Voyage of Time.” Supposedly, around this time, reshoots were taking place for both ‘Tree’ and ‘Voyage’ with Nigel Ashcroft, a U.K.-based natural history program producer, sporting a bio (since removed) that claimed he was working on “2 major projects with legendary film director Terrence Malick… As well as producing an extensive natural history segment for his latest feature film, ‘The Tree of Life’… they are making an IMAX film entitled ‘The Voyage of Time.’”
The bio erroneously made the claim that both would be out in 2009, which was of course, a pipe dream. More recently it was confirmed that Malick shot parts of ‘Tree’ in IMAX, and that ‘Voyage of Time’ would have been released simultaneously on IMAX screens alongside ‘Tree of Life’ in traditional theaters. “It was important not to cannibalize ‘Tree of Life,’” producer Bill Pohlad said to website Coming Soon. While ‘Voyage’ will have Brad Pitt providing the narration, it’s still a ways off. Pohlad said among the topics addressed in ‘Voyage’ were “the first signs of life, bacteria, cellular pioneers, first love, consciousness, the ascent of humanity, life and death and the end of the universe.” You know, the little stuff. And while it appears to be more of a straight documentary, the producer was cagey: “It’s going to change. There’s some new stuff getting shot.” It wouldn’t surprise us if ‘Voyage of Time’ is more explicitly tied into ‘Tree of Life’ than originally thought, and that the spacey stuff is all new footage (or at the very least different footage).
04. Malick Pitched “The Tree of Life” To Producer Bill Pohlad While He Was Working on “Che” (Yes, That “Che”)
Pohlad, who most will remember as the idealistic leading force behind Apparition, a distribution outfit born from his River Road Entertainment production company (they produced “Into the Wild” and “Brokeback Mountain” among others) that shuttered recently, was pitched the idea of “The Tree of Life” while Malick was working on “Che.” Yes, the “Che” that would go on to become Steven Soderbergh‘s magnum opus/the bane of his existence. In a 2009 interview with Variety, Pohlad said “he pitched me an idea that I thought was crazy, and it turned out to be ‘Tree of Life,’ which we’re doing together now.” (Apparition was always scheduled to release ‘Tree of Life’ before it imploded.)
More recently Pohlad described Malick’s script for “Che” to The Wrap as a “daunting project, and Terry’s script for ‘Che’ was not an easy read, or a typical read.” In an incredibly rare public appearance at the 2007 Rome Film Festival where Malick forbade interviewers from videotaping, recording, or even asking questions about his films (he was there to talk about “his favorite Italian films” instead), he hinted at his past as a reporter for The New Yorker. “Yes,” Malick said. “I was sent to Bolivia to do a piece on Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, but frankly I did not understand what was going on.” That might explain why the “Che” project ultimately passed on to Soderbergh, and while we love what Soderbergh did with the difficult and embattled political figure, we can’t help but feel like Malick’s version would have been, well, revolutionary, though god knows if it would have retained any political ideas at all.
05. The Original Cast Was Very Different
Any movie that has as long a gestation period as “The Tree of Life” (particularly if you fold in the years spent on “Q”) is going to go through some changes. One of the bigger changes had to do with the cast, which according to a 2006 Bombay Times report (riffing on material printed that we believe started in the Hollywood Reporter the year before), it was originally going to star none other than Mel Gibson and Colin Farrell. The Farrell report makes sense, as the Irish star reportedly got along well with the prickly Malick on the set of their historical drama, “The New World,” while the Gibson report seems fishier (even though the article describes the two as “close friends”). For one, the Bombay Times reports that Shailendra Singh was co-producing the movie, which you won’t find in the press notes or on the film’s IMDb page (maybe they were thinking of associate producer Sandhya Shardanand?). Then there’s the fact that the article repeatedly misspells Malick’s name. What the actors would have been shooting in India is something of a mystery too (Singh, quoted, said “15% of the film” would shoot there) – having seen the film, we can only imagine that he would have been grabbing images for the elliptical finale, in which folds of time and space wrinkle together, visualized by, well, we won’t ruin that here.
But a recently published Total Film article says that at one point “Q” was “set in the Middle East during World War I” and that, in the Farrell/Gibson configuration, “Indian production company Percept Picture Company would finance the film, which would be mostly shot in India.” So maybe that Bombay Times report wasn’t complete fiction, though it sounds like a rather different version of the movie that eventually hit screens, and not just because the cast changed.
06. The Pitt Role Was Concretely Cast With a Different Actor
This much is a certainty: Heath Ledger was originally supposed to play the role of Jack, the domineering patriarch at the center of “The Tree of Life,” a role that would later go to Brad Pitt (who had already signed on as a co-producer, probably much to the movie’s benefit). In an interview with Stephen Schaefer from December 2007, Ledger laid out his future plays: he would start shooting “The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus” with Terry Gilliam soon (which would ultimately be his last film), followed closely by ‘Tree of Life’ (backed up by a Hollywood Reporter note that Ledger and Sean Penn would star). But it wasn’t Ledger’s untimely death that would lead to his lack of involvement in ‘Tree of Life,’ but rather the star’s exhaustion – after working on so many movies back-to-back (this was right after his grueling shoot on Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” we need to keep in mind), he just wasn’t up to it (plus “he pulled out at the time for family reasons,” Pitt said). But he wasn’t the only actor unsure of himself.
During the Cannes press conference for ‘Tree of Life,’ Pitt admitted that he was a little concerned about taking on the role initially. Still, good sense won out. “I was a little hesitant about playing the oppressive father, but I felt the story was so important and for me it was really about the kids’ journey,” he said, adding: “And I think about everything I do now, my kids are going to see when they grow up, and (I think) about how they are going to feel. They know me as a dad and I hope they’ll just think I’m a pretty damn good actor.”