I sure hope Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is as entertaining as the nutty soap opera that’s developed over the issue of whether this mysterious, decades-spanning epic with Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and dinosaurs is going to have its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival — or a week or so earlier, on May 4, in the United Kingdom.
The movie’s U.K. distributor of record, Icon Film Distribution, kicked off the kerfuffle this week by listing the May 4 date on an English film distributors website. This did not please the U.S. distributor, Fox Searchlight, which labeled the report by Empire Magazine “not true.” Then Empire said that Icon confirmed that it was, indeed, planning to scoop the anticipated Cannes premiere (which hasn’t officially been confirmed by the festival, by the way).
Now Searchlight is directing press to a “final scoop” by intrepid blogger Jeff Wells, who quotes a statement from a spokeswoman for Summit International, which has licensed the independently-produced “The Tree of Life” to distributors in various territories: “The information regarding the May 4th UK release [of The Tree of Life] is incorrect. Icon Film Distribution Ltd. does not have the right to distribute “The Tree of Life” in the UK, as it is in default of its agreement. The matter is pending before an arbitration tribunal in Los Angeles.”
“If you interpet her words…with my colorful sensibility,” Wells writes, she’s “saying…that Icon is a troubled outfit that hasn’t paid us so don’t listen to them. They’re not real, they have no authority or materials in their possession including the film itself, and so they aren’t in the game.”
Which is fine with Wells and the other “journalistic elites” (his words) who have already reserved rooms in Cannes. “Mothers in Leeds who can’t afford babysitters and were going to take their kids to a local matinee showing of “The Tree of Life” on May 4th are sh– out of luck!” (exclaimation point added by me) he chortles.
But hold the phone, Jeff. Isn’t there a possibility that arbitration tribunal in Los Angeles might rule against
Summit? Or that these relatively last-minute deliberations and/or negotiatons might delay the allegedly planned Cannes premiere AND maybe even Searchlight’s planned U.S. release date of May 27?
Another nasty twist to the controversy was added last night by IndieWire’s Anne Thompson: “What I heard from London sources today is that Icon nabbed the title by paying a high minimum guarantee, and was trying to get out of releasing the film. (My queries to Icon have been ignored.) Hence the release date stand-off. The question is, how does Summit protect what is surely a delicate art-house flower that needs serious critical acclaim from starting to look like tainted goods? By bad-mouthing Icon.”
Release date stand-off? Tainted goods?
Though Thompson thinks Summit has the clout to prevail over Icon, the not-so-subtle implication here is that “The Tree of Life,” for all of its huge anticipation by critics, might not be universally embraced by them when they finally do see it, whether in Cannes or in less glamorous circumstances in Leeds. Malick’s last film, the beautiful but languid “The New World,” scored a barely fresh 60 percent positive reviews at Rotten Tomatoes in 2005. That’s dangerously low for an arty film.
About an hour ago, David Gritten of London’s The Telegraph reported that he had, indeed, heard from the beleagured Icon: “It’s a very British coup — legendary US director Terrence Malick’s long-awaited new film The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, is to receive its world premiere not in Cannes next month, but a week earlier in the UK. Its distribution company, Icon, has confirmed its May 4 British release date to me.”
Stay tuned. And no, none of this is an April Fool’s joke, even if it sounds like one.
