By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com

Fox Searchlight and Malick Reunite

Posted Thursday, May 23rd, 2019 - Comments Off on Fox Searchlight and Malick Reunite
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CANNES, FRANCE, May 23, 2019 – Fox Searchlight Pictures Chairmen Nancy Utley and Stephen Gilula announced today that the company has acquired North American and select international territory distribution rights to writer-director Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life.” Fresh off its World Premiere in competition at the 72nd Festival de Cannes, the film reunites Malick with Searchlight following the Oscar-nominated Best Picture “The Tree of Life,” which won the festival’s Palme d’Or in 2011. “A Hidden Life” stars August Diehl (“Inglourious Basterds”) as Austrian Franz Jägerstätter, a devoted husband and father who refuses to fight for the Nazis in World War II, even as the possibility of execution threatens to tear him apart from his family. Fox Searchlight will market and distribute the film, which is scheduled for release in 2019.

“A Hidden Life” also stars Valerie Pachner, Maria Simon, Bruno Ganz, Karin Neuhäuser, Tobias Moretti, Matthias Schoenaerts and Ulrich Matthes.  The film is an Elizabeth Bay Production in association with Aceway and Studio Babelsberg and is produced by Grant Hill, p.g.a., Dario Bergesio, Josh Jeter and Elisabeth Bentley, with Marcus Loges and Adam Morgan serving as executive producers.

“Terrence Malick has crafted a majestic and deeply affecting story of a man who held onto unwavering faith and devotion during the darkness of war,” said Utley and Gilula.  “We are elated to reunite with Terrence Malick after the wonderfully rewarding journey of ‘The Tree of Life.’ He has brought his exquisite filmmaking style to this powerful portrait of one man’s spirit in a time of crisis. The performances by the cast, anchored by August Diehl and Valerie Pachner, are tremendous.”

Producer Grant Hill said, “Terry and I are so delighted to be back home with our ‘Tree of Life’ partners, Fox Searchlight. Their commitment and understanding was beyond reproach on ‘Tree’ and we are looking forward to an equally satisfying relationship on ‘A Hidden Life.’ This is a very personal project for Terry and it is great to be back with friends to tell this remarkable true story.”

The deal was brokered by Executive Vice President of Acquisitions & Co-Productions Ray Strache, with Roeg Sutherland and Maren Olsen from CAA and David Garrett from Mister Smith on behalf of the filmmakers.

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon