Terrence Malick Prepping 'The Tree Of Life' Director's Cut; 'Voyage Of Time' Coming In 2014

Terrence Malick is notorious for deleting subplots and even entire characters during the editing process, but for a director's cut of The Tree of Life he's going to put some of that extra footage back in. Malick's longtime editor Billy Weber recently revealed that the filmmaker is working on a new edit that'll include some scenes that wound up on the cutting room floor.

But that's not the only thing Malick has on his plate right now. In addition to Knight of Cups and another, untitled feature, Malick's also been putting the finishing touches on his documentary Voyage of Time, and Weber says we could see that film as soon as next year. Hit the jump to get the details.

I don't even know the total [amount of footage that was shot], it was a huge amount of film, because he shot so many scenes. And I'm pretty sure he's doing a director's cut DVD of Tree Of Life, and that will have some of those scenes deleted [placed back] in. But for the theatrical release, he really thought that it was going to be too much, and he just couldn't put it all in.

This isn't the first we've heard about the possibility of a longer version of The Tree of Life. In 2011, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki told press that Malick was working on a six-hour cut that'd likely include more material about Jack's childhood including "his friends, his evolution, his changes, his awareness of the loss of is childhood."

How or when recut Tree of Life will be released remains to be seen, but while Malick fans wait for that they'll be able to dig into Voyage of Time. Malick's been working on the ambitious documentary for years, and Weber says it may finally be ready to land by next year. "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," he explained.

The film is believed to be in the same vein as the cosmic sequences from Tree of Life, as it walks through "the whole of time," exploring "the first signs of life, bacteria, cellular pioneers, first love, consciousness, the ascent of humanity, life and death and the end of the universe. Brad Pitt and Emma Thompson provide the narration.