Legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick has always worked to the beat of his own idiosyncratic drum. Sometimes that means a film every twenty years—“Days of Heaven” (1978), then “The Thin Red Line” (1998)—and sometimes it means a relatively rapid-fire delivery of movies: “Knight of Cups,” “Voyage of Time,” “Song to Song,” and “A Hidden Life” all arriving between 2015 and 2019.
But his latest film, the upcoming epic biblical drama “The Way Of The Wind,” has been the opposite of “rapid-fire.” The film—centered on the life of Jesus—was shot in the summer of 2019, and ever since, it’s been treated like a festival phantom: rumored, anticipated, whispered about, and then…nothing.
And yet, maybe it really could surface this year.
The project stars Géza Röhrig (“Son Of Saul”) as Jesus, alongside Matthias Schoenaerts as Saint Peter, Mark Rylance as Satan, Tawfeek Barhom as John the Baptist, Aidan Turner as Saint Andrew, plus Ben Kingsley, Joseph Fiennes, and Douglas Booth.
Every year since production wrapped, the same speculation has circled: Cannes in the spring, Venice in the fall, take your pick. Nearly seven years later, the film still hasn’t materialized publicly. But now Röhrig is offering a rare hint that the end of the wait might be in sight, and that “The Way Of The Wind” could even amount to Terrence Malick’s final film.
In an appearance on the Mazsihisz (the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities) podcas, as translated and shared via Reddit, Röhrig suggested “The Way Of The Wind” might be Terrence Malick’s swan song, Röhrig suggested the project might be Malick’s swan song, while also stressing this isn’t a scenic and conventional screen Jesus.
“We didn’t make such a picturesque, colorful Jesus film, which is what so many of them are, but instead this is directed by a real maestro,” Röhrig said. “And presumably this is his swan song, this is his last film. He wanted to direct this film with Disney in the ’90s, but Disney wouldn’t give him the final cut rights. So then he did this, this script,” he said.
“And now, compared to the fact that the film was shot for three months and in seven countries, with a very small crew and very little money, he tried to tell this story at the twilight of his life. And so it’s not like the church’s, and it’s not like anyone else’s Jesus,” Röhrig added.
He also cautiously hinted at a possible release window, stressing he could only say so much, and suggested you may need to mind your bladder due to the runtime.
“It might come out in May, maybe in the fall, maybe, let’s hope; I think that’s what I’m authorized to say,” Röhrig said. “But you have to expect a long film, and if it’s my career as a film actor, I think it’s pretty much over with this role,” he said.
Of course, the Malick reality check arrives immediately: none of this is official. There’s no festival confirmation, no public runtime, no release plan. And anyone who’s followed Malick’s recent history knows that “it might come out” is doing heavy lifting here—especially when the movie in question has lived in that liminal space between rumor and reality for more than half a decade.
So, is it actual Malick’s final film? Will it actually surface this year? At this point, who knows? With this one, it’s hard to tell what’s real, what’s premature, and what’s simply the gravitational pull of Malick mythology doing what it always does. Best to assume nothing—and be pleasantly shocked if it turns up in the official competition lineup of either festival.
