If I were making a parody of a Terrence Malick movie, I’d make his new film, To The Wonder.  It takes all of his trademarks—softly spoken narration, gorgeous cinematography, orchestral score, poetic ruminations—and forgets why they worked in his other pictures.  To The Wonder reveals that Malick’s previous movies succeed because they’re intimate stories painted on a larger canvas.  By comparison, To The Wonder is an intimate story about intimacy, so it collapses in on itself as characters endlessly muse on the nature of love without the audience ever sharing that feeling, or any other emotion for that matter.  It is a loveless movie about love where all of Malick’s trademarks feel like tricks.

A new image from Terrence Malick’s upcoming romantic drama To the Wonder has surfaced.  The film was shot back in 2010, but Malick recently unveiled his latest work at the Venice Film Festival to an unsurprisingly mixed response.  Ben Affleck stars as a man who returns to his small hometown in Oklahoma with his new love at his side (Olga Kurylenko).  Problems soon arise as Kurylenko meets a priest who is struggling with his vocation (Javier Bardem) and Affleck renews his ties with a childhood friend (Rachel McAdams).  After years of being in the dark, we recently learned quite a bit about the film via a detailed synopsis and comments from Affleck describing its loose narrative as “the memory of a life.”

Hit the jump to check out the new image featuring Affleck and Kurylenko in France.  The film is set to screen this week at the Toronto Film Festival, so look for Matt’s full review here on Collider soon.  To the Wonder is currently awaiting a release date.

Terrence Malick doesn’t talk about his movies.  He films them and then he lets others do the interviews.  His latest picture, To the Wonder, is making the festival rounds, and producers Sarah Green and Nicolas Gonda recently spoke about the director’s upcoming projects, Knight of Cups and an untitled music scene picture formerly titled “Lawless” (Malick graciously gave up the title to John Hillcoat‘s new movie).  With regards to Knight of Cups, the movie, which stars Christian Bale, recently wrapped production and is about the Los Angeles movie business.  The subject matter explains why every week there seems to be a new name attached to the project; they’re probably just small roles or cameos.

Hit the jump for more on Knight of Cups, the untitled music scene project, Green Blade Rising, and the ambitious documentary The Voyage of Time.

The elusive yet brilliant filmmaker Terrence Malick has been a busy man this year, working on two brand new features with all-star casts that include people like Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Cate Blanchett.  However, while I was thrilled to hear that Malick is becoming so prolific as of late, we still hadn’t heard anything about the director’s “mysterious” romantic drama To the Wonder, which he shot in 2010. We knew that the film starred Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko and Javier Bardem, but next to nothing was known about the film’s plot.

Good news was delivered late last month when it was announced that To the Wonder would be screening this fall at the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, confirming that Malick has (hopefully) completed his lengthy post-production.  The press notes for the Venice Film Festival, which is currently running, provide an incredibly detailed and eye-opening look at the plot for To the Wonder, along with some comments about the film from star Ben Affleck.  Hit the jump to take a look.

If you’ve got a recognizable name like the folks pictured above, you’d think that once you sign onto a project, you can expect to see your face on the big screen.  That’s not the case when Terrence Malick is the director.  Although Rachel Weisz, Barry Pepper, Amanda Peet and Michael Sheen all filmed scenes for the Badlands director’s film, To the Wonder, all of them were left on the cutting room floor. The film screens this coming Sunday at the Venice Film Festival before moving on to TIFF next week.  Hit the jump for why the actors’ scenes were cut and who is left in the finished film.

We’ve got a few exciting casting stories to share this evening.  First up, though many believed her character would be left out of the sequel, Deadline reports that Kat Dennings is indeed returning for Thor: The Dark World.  Details are thin, but apparently her role of Darcy Lewis has been expanded for the follow-up opposite Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth.  I thought Dennings’ comic relief was spot-on in Thor, so this comes as welcome news for the follow-up.  Production is set to begin imminently with director Alan Taylor (Game of Thrones) at the helm, Christopher Eccelston as the new baddie, and Tom Hiddleston returning as that pesky Loki.

Hit the jump for casting news concerning Terrence Malick’s upcoming drama Knight of Cups and the Arnold Schwarzenegger thriller Ten.

Another Abraham Lincoln feature film has arisen and it is set to star Diane Kruger (Inglourious Basterds).  The Green Blade Rises will see Kruger play the 16th President’s stepmother, Sarah Lincoln.  This summer has already seen the rise and fall of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and we’ll see Steven Spielberg’s effort, Lincoln, this November with Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role. Produced by Terrence Malick and written/directed by A.J. Edwards, The Green Blade Rises will focus on the formative days of Lincoln, the tragedy that ended his life and the women who guided him along the way.  Hit the jump for more on this project.

The Toronto International Film Festival has a great line-up this year, and one of the films that makes it great is Terrence Malick‘s To the Wonder.  I don’t know if the film will be good, but any Malick is worth watching.  The movie stars Ben Affleck as a lothario who becomes involved with a European woman (Olga Kurylenko) while in Paris, and who he marries when he returns with her to Oklahoma.  However, as their relationship flounders, he begins to take comfort in a childhood friend (Rachel McAdams) and a religious exile (Javier Bardem).  The film also stars Rachel Weisz, Barry Pepper, Amanda Peet, and Michael Sheen, but we currently don’t know anything about their roles.

Before playing at Toronto, To the Wonder will make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.  The festival director, Alberto Barbera, has now revealed some new details regarding the film’s themes.  Hit the jump for more.  The Venice Film Festival runs from August 29 – September 8th.  The Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 6 – 16th.

Filming is currently underway on Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups, although the set photos we’ve seen indicate that a better title might be Everybody Loves Christian Bale.  We’ve seen the actor frolicking on the beach with Natalie Portman, giving piggyback rides to Imogen Poots, and now he back to beach-frolicking, but this time it’s with Freida Pinto.  Plot details are being kept under wraps, although the title refers to a tarot card that, when placed upright, represents [per Wikipedia], “change and new excitements, particularly of a romantic nature. It can mean invitations, opportunities, and offers.”  But if the card is reversed, it means “unreliability and recklessness. It indicates fraud, false promises and trickery. It represents a person who has trouble discerning when and where the truth ends and lies begin.”  Sounds like a good premise for a character drama.

Hit the jump to check out the set photos, some of which feature Bale and Wes Bentley, but no frolicking.  The film also stars Cate Blanchett and Isabel Lucas.

Director Terrence Malick is currently in production on his follow-up to the yet-to-be-released follow-up to last year’s The Tree of Life, and some set photos have revealed a new addition to the cast.  While we wait for a release announcement regarding Malick’s Ben Affleck-fronted romantic drama To the Wonder, the director is in the midst of filming Knight of Cups, one of two films he plans to shoot this year (the other is currently untitled, but was previously called Lawless).

Plot details for Knight of Cups are basically non-existent, but we know that Christian Bale stars alongside Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett and possibly Isabel Lucas.  We recently saw set photos of Bale and Portman horsing around on the beach, but new shots show Bale filming scenes with a punked-up Imogen Poots (Fright Night, Jane Eyre).  Hit the jump for more, including set photos and a humorous video of Malick caught on TMZ.

I never thought I would say “It’s been difficult to keep up with Terrence Malick‘s numerous projects,” but here we are.  The director used to take years between putting movies into development, but now in addition to the Ben Affleck/Rachel McAdams romance film Into the Wonder hopefully hitting theaters this year, he’s currently at work on two more films: Lawless and Knight of Cups.  Christian Bale and Natalie Portman co-star in both movies, and today we have new set photos of the duo from either Lawless or Knight of Cups, but we don’t know which one.  The images show Bale and Portman goofing around on the shores of Malibu, but we don’t know if these are test shots of something that will be in whatever movie they’re shooting.

Details about Knight of Cups are being kept under wraps, but we know Lawless is about “Two intersecting love triangles,” and “It is a story of sexual obsession and betrayal set against the music scene in Austin, Texas.”  Knight of Cups also stars Isabel Lucas, and Lawless also stars Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Haley Bennett.  Cate Blanchett co-stars in both films.  Hit the jump to check out the images.

The new Starz drama series Magic City, created by writer/executive producer Mitch Glazer and premiering on April 6^th, takes place in 1959 at the luxurious Miramar Playa Hotel, during the tumultuous time when Havana fell to Castro’s rebels. Ike Evans (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is the star of his Miami hotel, but to finance his dream, he sold his soul to mob boss Ben “The Butcher” Diamond (Danny Huston). Ike’s wife Vera (Olga Kurylenko), a former showgirl, and his three kids, which include sons Stevie (Steven Strait) and Danny (Christian Cooke), think he’s an honorable man, but nothing at the Miramar Playa is what it seems.

During this exclusive interview with Collider, actress Olga Kurylenko talked about how she got her role on Magic City before even doing the chemistry test with co-star Jeffrey Dean Morgan, portraying a real and loving marriage on the show, the incredible wardrobe for the time period, how she generally prefers taking more time with her work than the quick pace of television, and how she’s even more excited to do Season 2 because she knows what to expect. She also talked about working with director Terrence Malick, for his as-yet-untitled feature with Ben Affleck and Rachel McAdams, how you never know what you’re going to be doing because he likes to be spontaneous, and how he took each of the actors in the film out for drive to talk about their characters. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

It’s obvious that Gary Ross (Seabiscuit) was the right man for the director’s chair as The Hunger Games is off to a roaring start at the box office. But what would the film have looked like if it were helmed by a different director? Michael Bay, Brett Ratner and Roger Corman would certainly have emphasized the sex appeal and violence. Garry Marshall and Nancy Meyers would probably focus on the romantic side.  How would Terrence Malick, Federico Fellini and Werner Herzog have approached the source material? What about Christopher Nolan or Woody Allen? Thanks to these alternate reality movie posters for The Hunger Games, we can get a glimpse of what might have been. Hit the jump to check them out.

For a guy who’s made only five films in almost 40 years, director Terrence Malick is becoming incredibly prolific as of late. Last year he released the long-awaited The Tree of Life, he’s still in post-production on an untitled romantic starring Ben Affleck that he shot in 2010, and he recently committed to shooting two movies this year: Knight of Cups and Lawless. We know next to nothing about both films except for the cast, but today an official logline for the latter has been unveiled that gives us some insight into what Malick has planned for stars Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Christian Bale. Hit the jump to see what’s in store for Lawless.

Natalie Portman has set her first two films since giving birth to her son back in June, and both movies will be with Terrence Malick.  According to Deadline, Portman will co-star in Knight of Cups and Lawless, which are shooting back-to-back.  She joins Christian Bale and Cate Blanchett in starring in both movies (although as far as we know, the films don’t share a plot or characters).  Knights of Cups also stars Isabel Lucas, and Lawless‘ cast includes Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, and Haley Bennett.  Knight of Cups shoots this summer and then Lawless will follow in the fall.

Hit the jump for more.