Tag: Theatrical

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (127 min.)
• Extended Cut / Spider-Man 2.1 (136 min.)

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 still ranks among the best superhero movies around. In 2007 an extended cut of Spider-Man 2 was released on DVD that was simply called Spider-Man 2.1. The DVD release only includes the extended cut while the Blu-ray includes both the theatrical and extended cuts. Collider interviewed Raimi where he confirms his preferred cut:

Collider: Recently Spider-Man 2.1 came out with 8 additional minutes. Were you involved in that?

Sam Raimi: Yes, that I supervised. And Sony came to me and said, we want to make a 2.1 that gives fans more of the movie. I said but well, the problem is, I want to be good to you Sony, but the problem is you gave me my director’s cut with the main picture, and I don’t want to punish you now, but that, I really liked, that was the movie I wanted to make and you let me make it and I’m thankful for it. They said well, don’t you have things we could still put in that the fans may want to see? I said okay, we won’t call it the director’s cut, but there’s some additional insight into character, there’s a few lines, there’s a few little action bits that were, maybe were unnecessary to make the point that they said the fans would want to see, so that’s what 2.1 is.

Source: Sam Raimi Interviewed – SPIDER-MAN 3, Collider

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (130 min.)
• Extended Cut (131 min.)

The sixth entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise, Fast & Furious 6 (or simply Furious 6) was released on Blu-ray where it included both the theatrical and extended cuts of the film. Fast & Furious 6’s director Justin Lin confirms on the commentary track, one third into the film, on the Blu-ray which edition he prefers:

“This is the director’s cut, so there’s a little extra stuff that Thure had, that I really loved. It pained me, it took me till the very and, I ended up taking it out just for pacing sake, but in this cut, I’m very happy to see it back in. When they ask about doing another cut, it’s always called extended cut because I always feel like the theatrical cut is my cut, it’s the director’s cut, but this is one of the rare times where I do feel like this is the director’s cut, as opposed to extended, just to have more stuff, and it’s not an issue with the studio or anything like that. It was just that we really had so much going on that the MPAA was having problems.  They were really great to work with, and we were ultimately able to get our PG-13. The theatrical cut is my cut, but, to be honest, with some of the sound tweaks and some of the little things that I wanted for pacing, I really do think that the director’s cut is more enjoyable version.”

Source: Justin Lin on the commentary track of Fast & Furious 6 on Blu-ray

The director’s preferred edition: Extended Cut

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (120 min.)
• Extended Cut (130 min.)

The Academy Award winning Best Picture Argo was released in an extended cut on Blu-ray dubbed Declassified Extended Edition in 2013. The extended cut adds almost 10 minutes to the film and is currently only available on Blu-ray. Entertainment Weekly interviewed director-star Ben Affleck when the extended cut of Argo was released:

Entertainment Weekly: This new extended cut of the film has nine extra minutes. Now, are those scenes your darlings that broke your heart to slash for the theatrical release? Or are these scenes more supplementary, adding context to what already exists?

Ben Affleck: No, it’s really interesting. I’ve never been in a movie where this happened or encountered it as a director. The nine minutes kind of came out all in one piece. I was screening the movie and people were really complaining that they were bored in various places but they couldn’t say what the problem was or what they didn’t like. They’d just say “Well, it’s slow. It takes a while to get going, blah, blah, blah.” And I loved the movie and I didn’t know what to do. I could tell that people were a bit less interested in Tony’s home life and so the editor and I, sort of as an experiment, said “Let’s just take out all the scenes with his wife and his kid, and just at the end, he just shows up at home on the porch. Let’s just see what happens.” And we did it and we screened it, and all of a sudden it just came together perfectly. And it broke my heart because the themes about family, responsibility, and marriage and all the other stuff were so dear to me; they were so central to why I wanted to make the movie. And Taylor [Schilling] is so great [as the wife] and she’s now on Orange is the New Black and everybody knows how great she is. But at the time, it felt like such a sh–ty thing to do — just to cut her all the way out of the movie, out of no fault of her own. And it’s such a sh–ty call because it’s like the breakup: “It’s not you, it’s me.” But it really was me! And now, I really was happy because I said [to Taylor], “Listen, I promise you, I’m going to put the whole thing back on the extended version so you’ll be able to see it. You’re really good in it.” And I’ll be interested to see if the people who do watch it share the belief that I had ultimately, that while really good, it was stuff that had to come out for the sake of the larger narrative. But it’s not just the kind of like, “Oh yeah, the bathroom scene we took out and, you know, 30 seconds from that scene.” You know, how people kind of slop stuff back in there just to be able to put a sticker on it that says “More Footage!”

Source: Ben Affleck on the new ‘Argo’ Blu-ray and the role more daunting than Batman, Entertainment Weekly

The director’s preferred edition: Theatrical Cut

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (133 min.)
• Extended Edition (148 min.)

The Blues Brothers is considered by fans to be a classic comedy, and come to think of it, almost all comedies are thought by someone to be a classic. But not every comedy is likely to be titled a “Catholic classic” by the Vatican.

Writer-director John Landis originally presented The Blues Brothers as a roadshow film but Universal’s owner Lew Wasserman wanted the film shortened and the rest is history. For many years the extended cut of The Blues Brothers was the only cut available on DVD until the 25th anniversary edition where it included both the theatrical and extended cuts. Landis has talked about his preferred cut of the film only a few times on the record. Most notably in an interview with DVD Talk Radio from 2005:

Scott Weinberg: Do you have a preference? Do you consider one or the other a director’s cut?
John Landis: Well, in my own head, I think both are incomplete.
Scott Weinberg: How so?
John Landis: Well, you know, my original cut was a roadshow. You know, it had an intermission and I had to make all these lifts and trims. And then more lifts and trims. What the expanded version represents the second version. The second lifts from the roadshow version.
Scott Weinberg: What happened with the original print?
John Landis: They threw away all that stuff in 1985.

Source: Interview with John Landis, DVD Talk Radio

For those who want to know a little bit more about the roadshow, theatrical and extended cuts:

“The movie originally was a roadshow; it was meant to have an intermission. And Lew Wasserman said, “John you have to cut 30 minutes out of it.” So we did big lifts, and then I had a preview in L.A. and then I made some more lifts, and that was the released version. I’ve always felt the movie was kind of strangely lopsided, because of the rhythm and how I intended it to be, that was gone. But nonetheless, I don’t know how many years ago, Universal found this exhibitor print.

In 1985, Universal threw out all of the outtakes and trims, so the negatives are gone. So, all of the other stuff that was cut out is gone. However, the print from the preview showed up. It turns out it was stolen by the theater manager’s son, and he put it on eBay about seven or eight years ago, so Universal and the FBI swooped in to retrieve it, and that so-called “Expanded Version” is that preview print. It’s not my first cut of the movie, but it has like three scenes that weren’t in the movie, and we were able to extend some songs. The John Lee Hooker number is longer. The James Brown number is longer. The Cab Colloway number is longer. It’s like 15 minutes longer, but it isn’t the movie either.”

Source: AICN LEGENDS: Capone talks THE BLUES BROTHERS, Eddie Murphy, and Ed Wood with John Landis!!! Part 2, Aint It Cool News

The director’s preferred edition: In a way, neither edition

What editions are available?

• Theatrical Cut (109 min.)
• Extended Cut (117 min.)