Terrence Malick Is a Movie-Making Machine

Will Leitch
·Editor
It'd be nice of Terrence would at least pose for a photo sometime, so we didn't have to run Wendy's. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images
It'd be nice of Terrence would at least pose for a photo sometime, so we didn't have to run Wendy's. Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

So "The Tree Of Life," Terrence Malick's third movie in 32 years, will be released in four theaters on Friday, just more than a week after its public unveiling, following more than 20 years of string-collecting by Malick in its creation. That's to say: It's already old news! What do you got for us next, Malick?

The mysterious auteur -- by the way, this is what it requires to be "mysterious" today; actually vanishing from the public eye for more than two decades -- is already shooting his untitled next film, starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Rachel Weisz and Jessica Chastain. That's supposed to be a love story, though knowing Malick, by the time is finally released, at least two of the people in the cast there won't show up in the film. (It's supposed to come out in 2012, which probably means 2014.)

But let's look past even that, to the movie after that one, tenatively called "Voyage of Time." (It is a very Malick-ian thing that the upcoming movie doesn't have a title, but the one two movies away does.) Bill Pohlad, who produced "The Tree Of Life," says the film -- which will be in IMAX and is probably a small little picture, merely about the creation of the universe -- is another Malick passion project. This guy, he's passionate about everything.

"It's still a strong desire of Terry's," said Pohland, "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."

We hope this new, invigorated Malick starts churning out films like Woody Allen or Takeshi Miike, and that they all feature about two minutes of Sean Penn shambling around, looking depressed, not talking. Also, frog bottle rockets, more of those please.

Updates on Two Terrence Malick Projects [Coming Soon]