Corona | Coming Attractions

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.