Terrence Malick is such a notorious recluse in Hollywood that he shies away from press appearance and interviews to the point that not even TMZ recognizes him. Now, a production company that invested $3 million in the director’s planned galactic masterpiece Voyage of Time, alleges that Malick also shies away from his work, and they’re currently suing Malick and his production company Sycamore Pictures for missing deadlines and generally dragging their heels on the project. According to London-based Seven Seas Partnership, the three separate films (two 45-minute IMAX films and one feature-length movie) were supposed to be finished by May 2013, but their lawyer Dan Webb told the New York Post: “Sycamore consistently misrepresented that production of these films was moving forward for years, but now has missed production deadlines and blown through $6 million with little to show for it. Yet during the six years he was supposed to be filming Voyage, Malick has finished four other films, and Sycamore is now stonewalling our right under the contract to full access to everything relating to the development or production of the Voyage films.”
They may have a point. Back in the spring, Malick’s longtime editor Billy Weber talked to Indiewire about To The Wonder, but was pretty vague on the details for the upcoming features: “Voyage of Time is supposed to come out, I think, 2014. It’s all planned, it’s got a release, it has a distributor — it’s IMAX, it’s a big IMAX film — I think it has a date and all of that.” And in September 2012, The Film Stage focused on Malick’s Christian Bale-starring Knight of Cups film, with little mention of Voyage of Time other than to say it’s “Not Coming Anytime Soon.” Whether anyone besides Malick knows any more about the film or not — the director is notoriously difficult when it comes to the editing process as well — it is clear that at this point, we’ll continue our wait for the director’s masterpiece.
