Corona | Coming Attractions

Finally, the trailer for Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.

Fox Searchlight has announced a May 27, 2011 release date for The Tree of Life.

Deadline is reporting that Fox Searchlight has picked up the distribution rights to the picture and won't release it until sometime in 2011. No official announcement has gone out from Searchlight yet but with an already full fall/winter schedule it's not hard to imagine the studio hanging on to Malick's movie until the slate is more clear.

A PG-13 rating has been given to Malick's latest film by the MPAA for "strong thematic material."

When you manage to confirm anything about the premise of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life it instantly becomes worthy of a news story. When the British online/print magazine Empire thrust their microphone in front of Brad Pitt (one of the film's stars as well as one of its producers), they did get confirmation about the cosmic, infinite nature of the movie's B story.

Asked if the movie that's rumored to run at this year's Cannes Film Festival can be labeled a science fiction story, Pitt replied, "Well, in a way. It's this little tiny story of a kid growing up in the 50s with a mother who's grace incarnate and a father who's oppressive in nature. So he is negotiating his way through it, defining who he's gonna be when he grows up. And that is juxtaposed with a little, tiny micro-story of the cosmos, from the beginning of the cosmos to the death of the cosmos. So that's where the sci-fi – or the sci-fact – comes in."

Empire also learned that Heath Ledger had originally been set to play a role in the movie but then exited. A short while later the young actor passed away from complications arising from taking drug prescriptions.

Over at his Hollywood Elsewhere blog, Jeff Wells is reporting via a source that The Tree of Life is supposedly coming out in 2009. The source also confirms that there are dinosaurs in the film and gives a context for how the prehistoric animals are connected to the story with slight spoilers revealed. They also say that the production is currently raising additional funds to bankroll the IMAX portion of the film which will run about 40 minutes in length.

ScreenDaily reports that TriPictures will handle the Spanish component of distribution for the movie.

Empire magazine has uncovered exciting news about The Tree of Life's storyline. In an interview with Mike Fink, an Oscar-winning special effects supervisor now working on Malick's movie, he states that there will be three version of the film, "a 35mm release, a shorter IMAX version, and then they’re talking about another shorter 35mm version which isn’t quite the IMAX version but not the feature length one either."

And then comes the doozy. "We’re animating dinosaurs, but it’s not Jurassic Park. The attempt is to treat it as if somehow a camera wound up in the middle of these periods when dinosaurs roamed the earth and creatures first started to emerge from the sea onto the land. The first mammals appearing. We’re doing a number of creatures all seriously scientifically based."

Ain't It Cool News did some digging and found a connection between Tree of Life's dinosaurs and an aborted 1970s project called Q that Malick developed. Back then the film was going to be set during World War I in the Middle East but there was to be a prologue featuring a sleeping minotaur that dreams of the formation of the Earth. A Los Angeles magazine interview from 1995 with Malick has him talk about the embryonic movie. Are some of those ideas from Q now being used for The Tree of Life?

Among the annals of special effects accomplishments the name Douglas Trumbull is legendary. Nominated for creating the FX in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, as well as supervising the FX for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Trumbull has been retired from the industry for decades. But has he made a comeback to help craft the effects for The Tree of Life?

According to Ain't It Cool News, yes. Trumbull has been spotted in Austin on the set and the site has confirmed he has shot some amount of footage for the movie. However, since there's a tight lid on secrecy with the production no one currently knows to what extent Trumbull is involved with the project.

A synopsis of the movie's storyline has now been posted on Summit Entertainment's section for the movie. While the summary offers better insight into the film's main character it doesn't confirm any of the rumors about moments showing the distant past. Here is the summary on the Summit site:

"Our picture is a cosmic epic, a hymn to life.

"We trace the evolution of an eleven-year-old boy in the Midwest, Jack, one of three brothers. At first all seems marvelous to the child. He sees as his mother does, with the eyes of his soul. She represents the way of love and mercy, where the father tries to teach his son the world's way, of putting oneself first. Each parent contends for his allegiance, and Jack must reconcile their claims. The picture darkens as he has his first glimpses of sickness, suffering and death. The world, once a thing of glory, becomes a labyrinth.

"Framing this story is that of adult Jack, a lost soul in a modern world, seeking to discover amid the changing scenes of time that which does not change: the eternal scheme of which we are a part. When he sees all that has gone into our world's preparation, each thing appears a miracle — precious, incomparable. Jack, with his new understanding, is able to forgive his father and take his first steps on the path of life.

"The story ends in hope, acknowledging the beauty and joy in all things, in the everyday and above all in the family -- our first school -- the only place that most of us learn the truth about the world and ourselves, or discover life's single most important lesson, of unselfish love."

There is also one photo showing Brad Pitt playing Jack's father from the 1950s era of the film.

As the film continues to shoot in Austin, Texas, the Austin 360 Film Blog gives us this interesting, one sentence rumor to think about: "An Austinite who worked on the film said that when Malick saw a butterfly land on an actor's head, the director chased the insect around with the camera for a half hour."

Actress Jessica Chastain will play the wife of Brad Pitt's character. Filming has just started on location in Texas. Financing for the film is coming from River Road Entertainment.

Chastain has had roles on Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Veronica Mars, ER and Journeyman.

Production designer Jack Fisk is interviewed by The New York Times. Fisk has been the P.D. for all four of Terrence Malick's movies and he will be for the fifth, The Tree of Life. He just can't tell anyone about what his duties require him to design. "I can't say anything, or I'd probably get killed," Fisk tells the paper -- but he did state that he was headed off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to do research for the movie.

Brad Pitt is now in talks to replace Heath Ledger in the film. Sean Penn remains attached.

According to Variety, Pitt is rumored to be working in the movie no next to nothing upfront. Consider that to an offer from Universal Pictures for $20 million dollars for the actor to star in the thriller State of Play. If that doesn't tell you that Brad Pitt is interested in making this movie, nothing will.

Heath Ledger and Sean Penn are in negotiations to star in the film. At one point Malick's star from The New World, Colin Farrell, was attached to play a part in the film but he's since moved on.