Terrence Malick’s ‘Voyage of Time’ Finally Coming in October

Terrence Malick works at his own pace. If that means he goes 20 years between feature films, so be it. If that means he shoots footage in 2013 for a film that still shows no signs of eventual release, so be it.

And if that means he works on a project on-and-off over the course of 30 years, then we all better sit up straight and listen up when he says it’s finally time to release it. After three decades of development, Voyage of Time is ready for the public’s eyes, and that’s cause for celebration. Even though Malick requires quite a bit of patience from his flock, he usually makes their wait well worth it. Notices on To The Wonder and this spring’s Knight of Cups were mixed, but there’s still plenty of reason to look forward to a new film from Terrence Malick, especially when it claims to encompass the whole of creation.

Malick began working on Voyage of Time in the late ’70s, when the project was known as Q and going to shoot under the auspices of Paramount Pictures. Disagreements between Malick and the studio led to him quitting the production and taking the footage he had already shot with him, using some bits for The Tree of Life. But on October 7 of this year, two separate versions of the finished film will run for public consumption: a 40-minute IMAX cut with narration from producer Brad Pitt and a feature-length 35mm cut featuring narration from Malick’s Knight of Cups star Cate Blanchett. Both films will include scoring from legendary composer Ennio Morricone as well.

The news of this once-mythical film’s impending release was buried deep in an IMAX earnings report from a couple weeks ago, only recently unearthed by the folks at One Big Soul. The official description is as follows:

VOYAGE OF TIME is a celebration of the universe, displaying the whole of time, from its start to its final collapse. This film examines all that occurred to prepare the world that stands before us now: science and spirit, birth and death, the grand cosmos and the minute life systems of our planet.

So, no biggie. Just everything that’s ever existed.