Well, it’s been nearly a month since any word out of the world of Terrence Malick, and granted this is just a tiny morsel, but it at least confirms that things are still moving forward.
Buried in Deadline‘s recent report about the Emma Thompson scribed “Effie” it notes that the actress/writer has signed on to be “one of the narrators” of Malick’s gestating documentary “Voyage Of Time.” It’s the first we’ve heard of multiple narrators for the project, with Brad Pitt already expected to lend his voice to the film and it will be Thompson’s first time working with the director. The project likely crossed her plate through producers Don Rosenfeld and Andreas Roald of Merchant Ivory Productions, who are backing both Malick’s doc and Thompson’s “Effie.”
Last we heard about the film — that was ambitiously planned to be concurrently released with “The Tree Of Life” — Malick was planning to utilize footage obtained during the production of “The Tree Of Life” in addition to shooting new footage for the project. The scope of the film will be massive, with the film said to encompass “the first signs of life, bacteria, cellular pioneers, first love, consciousness, the ascent of humanity, life and death and the end of the universe.” We’d guess that a different narrator will be utilized to voice each section of the documentary, so perhaps a few more names will come into the mix in the next little while.
And well, that’s about it. There’s no word on if the long mooted IMAX format is still in the cards or even when Malick will finish and release this thing; as you already know by now, he does what he wants when he wants. There’s also no word yet on the “experimental” film he’s got in the can starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper, Charles Baker and Jessica Chastain (aka “The Burial“). Filming was still happening as recently as May, and while Optimum recently picked up the U.K. rights for 2012 we all know how Malick and strict deadlines get along. Not to mention, there were reports of a secretive project that may shoot this summer, but again, nothing has bubbled to the surface yet.
