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What’s next for Terrence Malick after ‘The Tree of Life’?

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His new movie is coming out this weekend, but hard-core Terrence Malick fans always want to know what’s next for the director, even if he himself doesn’t always know.

Malick has finished shooting his new film, a drama once titled “Burial” and now without a title. Starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams and Olga Kurylenko, its contents have been shrouded in mystery, as is typical for a Malick project.

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What is known: It’s a love story, and it uses some of the same radical slice-of-life production techniques used on “Tree.” One person who worked on the film described it as even more experimental, in fact. It’s also the first film Malick has made that’s not in period, which should make for a switch for viewers used to his visions of throwback America.

There’s no U.S. distributor yet for the Affleck movie, but one person who saw a few minutes that are being shown to foreign buyers said that the meditativeness for which Malick is known is there in spades. There was no discernible story or a voice-over in the footage, but shots of Affleck and McAdams in Malick’s trademark man-in-nature style.

Of course, given the gaps between Malick’s movies, the big question is when the 67-year-old’s new project will reach theaters. There were at least two sets of reshoots that had the actors flying back to a Paris location after the production was complete, suggesting an elaborate, Malickian level of tinkering.

But compared with ‘Tree,’ whose haul of effects bogged down the production, Malick’s sixth project has considerably fewer visual arabesques. And Malick himself may have offered the biggest clue as to when his new movie might be ready: He has told members of his production team to keep the summer and fall open for a possible shoot of yet another film –- which means he expects to be finished with this one in a matter of months.

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Finally, the end of secrets on Terrence Malick’s ‘The Tree of Life

--Steven Zeitchik

twitter.com/ZeitchikLAT

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