Terrence Malick negotiating to start shooting in March :: Film & TV News :: Articles

While this is a little more speculative than most news pieces we post here, things sound likely enough to warrant a little bit of unconfirmed information. The Hollywood Reporter says that Terrence Malick's long-awaited fifth film is making headway towards production, with both Heath Ledger and Sean Penn in talks about working on the project. The film's lead was originally set to be played by Colin Farrell, who worked with Malick in his last feature, The New World, but that attempt died off two years ago.

This is good news for anyone speculating on whether or not Malick would make a film. In his nearly 40-year career he has directed just four feature-length movies, it just so happens that several of them are masterpieces. And whenever Malick goes silent, he tends to do so for a long time, so after the project originally went sour it was unknown whether it would be another decade before Malick sat back in the director's chair.

The feature they're working on is called Tree of Life, and that's pretty much it as far as anyone knows, but there's some rumors that it's been gestating with Malick since 1978. Sean Penn and Malick worked together on The Thin Red Line, so it's no surprise to see them working together again. Tree of Life was noted earlier this month by ComingSoon.net to be headed for a March production date in order to beat possible Hollywood strikes next year, which is corroborated by the press release. If so, it looks like we may have a new Malick flick on our hands late 2007 or early 2008.