UPDATE: More details, via The Film Stage. The film is currently three hours long. Malick first hoped to make the film in the ‘90s with Disney and a large budget, but quickly departed the project when the studio wouldn’t give him final cut; he then embarked on “The Thin Red Line”.
EARLIER: As I had recently reported, Terrence Malick’s “The Way of the Wind” is still not ready.
Long story short, separate sources were telling me that Malick was practically done editing the film. There was an end in sight. However, you could almost certainly scratch off a Cannes 2024 appearance. He’s continuing work on this one until, at least, August — that’s when the final stages of mixing occur. The next best case scenario could have been a Venice premiere.
However, we can also scratch off Venice. Géza Röhrig, who plays Jesus in Malick’s biblical epic, has confirmed that the film will premiere at Cannes 2025. Malick has been editing the film, which was shot in 2019, for close to five years now. He also, supposedly, shot close to 3000 hours of footage.
“The Way of the Wind” conveys passages “in the life of Christ” through the representation of evangelical parables. Jesus Christ's descent into the world of the dead, also known as his “descent into hades,” rumored to be one of the parables included in the film. The cast includes the likes of Matthias Schoenaerts (as Saint Peter), Röhrig (as Jesus), Ben Kingsley, Joseph Fiennes, and Mark Rylance (as Satan).
2025 might be the year of the Jesus movie. It’s not just Malick who is tackling Christ, but upcoming films by Mel Gibson (“Passion of the Christ: Resurrection”) and Martin Scorsese (“The Life of Jesus”) are also in prep mode.
Im the meantime, I’ve been also hearing that Malick, 80, is eyeing to shoot a smaller-scaled film in his home state of Texas, possibly at the end of the year. No other details were given.
Whether any of these projects do end up getting released, Malick has already put a legendary stamp on cinema with his four best films, “Badlands,” “Day of Heaven,” “The Thin Red Line” and “Tree of Life.”