Terrence Malick has apparently decided one film every 6-7 years just isn’t packing it any longer. After we finally saw the release of The Tree of Life this year the prolific helmer has already completed principal photography one new, currently untitled film (known to most as The Burial) starring Ben Affleck, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko, Barry Pepper, Amanda Peet, Michael Sheen and Jessica Chastain and now Variety reports we should expect not one, but two more films after that which will shoot back-to-back in 2012.
One of the films we already knew about which will star Christian Bale and Haley Bennett. However, we now know the title of the film is Lawless, and along with Bale and Bennett the film will co-star Ryan Gosling, Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, the latter of which will be seen in December as the titular character in David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
With the news Lawless will shoot in 2012, it is unclear as to whether the work Malick and Bale were seen shooting at the Austin City Limits Music Festival back in mid-September is part of that project or something else entirely. A rumor did pop up yesterday, saying the footage was pre-production on Lawless as Bale was “working out and finding his character” and he went “method for much of his time on the grounds, interacting with with some of the artists backstage apologizing in advance for any rudeness by saying his character in the movie is kind of an ‘asshole.'”
However, the news of Malick and Bale teaming together once again after first working with one another on The New World doesn’t end there. In fact, news of Malick working with Blanchett doesn’t end there either, as Bale and Blanchett will also star in Knight of Cups for the director along with Immortals and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen star Isabel Lucas.
Plot details on both pictures are completely unknown. Tree of Life and The New World producers Sarah Green and Nicolas Gonda will produce both films and FilmNation will take them both to the American Film Market this week for presentation to buyers.
There is one other film Malick has that isn’t clear when it will see the light of day, and that’s the Voyage Of Time documentary he shot while making The Tree of Life, which will supposedly be narrated by Brad Pitt and Emma Thompson. That film is said to encompass “the first signs of life, bacteria, cellular pioneers, first love, consciousness, the ascent of humanity, life and death and the end of the universe.”
The only question I’m left to wonder is whether or not this news means Bale will no longer be able to work with Darren Aronofsky on Noah. It wasn’t a sure thing that Bale would take the lead role in that film, but he was the presumed frontrunner. With promotion of The Dark Knight Rises and The Flowers of War along with two Malick pictures I wonder if Bale would have the time to squeeze in the religious epic.
