When Terrence Malick‘s longtime editor Billy Weber told us last year that the filmmaker’s forever developing “Voyage Of Time” was coming in 2014, it seemed to good to be true. A lawsuit cropped up (since settled, apparently) and Malick of course has been busy on two other projects, “Knight Of Cups” and his untitled Austin music scene movie (and supposedly, a director’s cut of “The Tree Of Life“). So you won’t be too surprised to learn that this project is still a couple of year away.
Production companies Wild Bunch and Sophisticated Films are headed to Cannes this week, where they’ll be showing off the first images from Malick’s secret documentary that is “a celebration of the earth, displaying the whole of time, from the birth of the universe to its final collapse.” The movie ” “examines all that went to prepare the miracle that stands before us now. After the nebulae and supernovae, after the lands of lava and smoke, after the elaboration of the first cells, first fish, first amphibians and reptiles, this great wonder!” And “using words and music, we are encouraged to view the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet with gratitude and awe, in Malick’s most ambitious film to date.” That’s what the sales material says anyway.
The director has been capturing footage for years, and has been using IMAX cameras, and in typically Malick fashion, there will be more than one version of the film. Now set for a 2016 release (fingers crossed!), “Voyage Of Time” will arrive in a 40-minute large format version (presumably for museum-style screenings), as well as in a feature length cut. And if that’s not enough, Wild Bunch honcho Vincent Maraval calls the movie, “Malick’s legacy to humanity.” Okay, then. Let’s just hope it’s not a two-hour supercut of the nature stuff from “Tree Of Life” (and don’t forget, Malick was shooting “Voyage Of Time” material at the same time as that film).
We’ll see if this timeline stick, but trying to pinpoint a release date on a Malick movie is a fool’s errand (though the lawsuit probably gave the director a kick in the pants to get this done). Emma Thompson and Brad Pitt (who is also producing) are among the previously reported narrators, but hopefully we’ll get more details on other collaborators soon. [Variety]
