Films with multiple versions
Many films have been cut and recut by filmmakers that have not been satisfied with the original theatrical release.
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- DirectorRidley ScottStarsHarrison FordRutger HauerSean YoungA blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator.Ridley Scott has sort of become the poster boy for producing "director's" or "extended" cuts of his films for the financial windfall that may produce. The different versions of Blade Runner contain some fairly significant changes. Which version do you prefer?
Blade Runner's production was fraught from beginning to end, with Ridley Scott repeatedly clashing with his American crew and leading man Harrison Ford. Scott's obsessive attention to detail also landed him in trouble with co-financers Tandem Pictures, who'd agreed to partly fund the movie on the proviso that, if the production went over budget, they could assume creative control over its final cut.
As the gruelling night shoots wore on, Blade Runner inevitably did go over budget by around $6m, Tandem producers Terry Perenchio and Bud Yorkin stepped in, fired Scott, and took over the project themselves. Although Scott was later reinstated, Perenchio and Yorkin retained overall control, and a negative reception to an early cut of the film merely added to their opinion that it was too "arty" and difficult to follow. The resulting changes were far-reaching and well documented: an explanatory voice-over was laid over the top, and a 'happy' ending (famously cobbled together using off-cuts from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining) replaced Scott's original ambiguous conclusion.
Fortunately, common sense would ultimately win out: later edits of the film restored Blade Runner to Scott's original vision, and it's now rightly regarded as an artistic and hugely influential triumph. - DirectorRobin HardyStarsEdward WoodwardChristopher LeeDiane CilentoA puritan police sergeant arrives in a Scottish island village in search of a missing girl, who the pagan locals claim never existed.There are now three versions of this film available with the recently released "Final Cut" or "Middle Version" as it is also called or you can call it the 1979 American Cut.
- DirectorOliver StoneStarsColin FarrellAnthony HopkinsRosario DawsonAlexander, the King of Macedonia and one of the greatest army leaders in the history of warfare, conquers much of the known world.This seems to be the film that Oliver Stone is never finished with. There have already been three versions released and Stone has claimed he is cutting this one again...so version 4 on the way? I think there is a lot to like about this film but it was horribly miscast and cutting and recutting can't change that.
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsOrson WellesPeter van EyckMichael RedgraveAn elusive billionaire hires an American smuggler to investigate his past, leading to a dizzying descent into a cold-war European landscape.Of course most people know the films of Orson Welles were often recut without his consent. There are several versions of this film even beyond what you will find on the Criterion box set.
- DirectorOrson WellesStarsCharlton HestonOrson WellesJanet LeighA stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping and police corruption in a Mexican border town.Another Welles film that is available in several versions.
- DirectorSteven SpielbergStarsRichard DreyfussFrançois TruffautTeri GarrRoy Neary, an Indiana electric lineman, finds his quiet and ordinary daily life turned upside down after a close encounter with a UFO, spurring him to an obsessed cross-country quest for answers as a momentous event approaches.Check out the box set for the three different versions of the film.
- DirectorTerry GilliamStarsJonathan PryceKim GreistRobert De NiroA bureaucrat in a dystopic society becomes an enemy of the state as he pursues the woman of his dreams.Again we have a theatrical cut, a director's cut, and what you would probably call a producer's cut.
More often than not, the battle over the content of a movie's final cut is discussed behind closed doors, with only vague hints escaping into the wider world through rumours and insider gossip. But in the case of Terry Gilliam's blackly comic sci-fi dystopia Brazil, the disagreement over the final cut spilled out into an ugly and very public display.
Having first appeared in European cinemas in the spring of 1985, Brazil was doing relatively well, particularly in France. Yet its US distributors, Universal, were strangely about how to market it in America - in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Sidney Sheinberg (president of Universal's parent company MCA) predicted that Brazil's chances of making money at the US box office were "precisely zero".
To this end, Sheinberg began preparing his own cut of the movie, whittling the 142-minute duration down to 90 minutes, changing the soundtrack, and adding a new, upbeat ending. In the face of this studio meddling - and unable to intervene, having lost final cut privileges when Brazil came in over its agreed duration - Gilliam did something rather unusual: he went public.
An open letter appeared in an October edition of the Hollywood trade paper Variety - a full-page advert which simply read "Dear Sid Sheinberg, When are you going to release my film, Brazil?"
That ad served as the first shot in an unpleasant battle. Sheinberg went to the LA Times with his side of the story one month later, and petulantly said, "If this movie is so perfect in its present form, get somebody else to buy it. We'll take a loss on it."
Gilliam stuck to his guns and, after secretly showing the uncut version of the film to the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, finally managed to get Universal to release a 132-minute version of Brazil. From a financial point of view, Sheinberg's predictions weren't entirely wide of the mark - Brazil didn't make its money back at the US box office. Yet from a creative point of view, Gilliam secured a victory: Brazil was nominated for two Academy Awards, and is now regarded as a genre classic.
Universal's 94-minute edit, since dubbed the Love Conquers All Cut, survives as an extra on the Criterion DVD release of Brazil. It's unlikely that this bowdlerised version would have been a hit in cinemas, either. - DirectorMichael CiminoStarsKris KristoffersonChristopher WalkenJohn HurtDuring the Johnson County War in 1890 Wyoming, a sheriff born into wealth does his best to protect immigrant farmers from rich cattle interests.The production of the western Heaven's Gate is so infamous that it has since become the subject of numerous articles and books. By the late 1970s, Michael Cimino was riding high on the success of Thunderbolt And Lightfoot and the Oscar-winning The Deerhunter, and he promptly wielded his new-found status to make an expensive, broad-canvas movie set in 19th century Wyoming.
Cimino was given a huge amount of latitude to make exactly the film he wanted, and as the cans of film piled up and the movie drifted further and further over budget, executives at United Artists began to grow nervous. Stories began to circulate of Cimino's obsessive attention to detail, from waiting in the middle of a field with his cast and crew until just the right cloud rolled into view, to building elaborate underground water systems to give the grass just the right shade of green.
When Cimino returned from the editing room with a rough cut of the movie running to almost five-and-a-half hours, a horrified United Artists demanded a tighter edit. Cimino duly went back and, having changed the locks on the editing room, cut his behemoth of a film down to a slightly less ungainly (yet still punishingly long) three hours and 39 minutes.
That cut, which premiered to critics in November 1980, was met with almost universally scathing reviews, and the film was duly postponed. Desperate to save the situation, United Artists had the film cut down drastically to two hours and 29 minutes, but it was too late. Poisoned by the initial reviews and bad press, Heaven's Gate made a disastrous $3m from its huge initial investment, which IMDb puts at a colossal $44m.
The film left United Artists teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the studio was later sold off to MGM. Cimino may have enjoyed unprecedented creative freedom (there was even a clause in his contract which meant that United Artists were powerless from stopping him from going over budget), but it came at a cost to other filmmakers: in the wake of Heaven's Gate, few directors would be granted the same level of freedom again. - DirectorDavid LynchStarsKyle MacLachlanVirginia MadsenFrancesca AnnisA Duke's son leads desert warriors against the galactic emperor and his father's evil nemesis to free their desert world from the emperor's rule.Fresh from the successes of Eraserhead and The Elephant Man, David Lynch was offered the chance to direct an adaptation of Frank Herbert's sci-fi tome, Dune. Lynch duly accepted, despite his lack of particular interest in the original novel; in a later interview, Lynch said, "I probably shouldn't have done that picture, but I saw tons and tons of possibilities for things I loved, and this was the structure to do them in."
Working from a 135-page script, Lynch began shooting Dune in the spring of 1983, and ended up with a rough cut that amounted to around five hours. It required tightening up, for sure, but Lynch and his creative team were confident that they could pare it down to their originally-intended three-or-so hours. Lynch appeared to be unaware that Dune's producers had entirely other ideas.
"I think we started the film without David having any real idea what it would be but intending it to be two hours," cinematographer Freddie Francis later said, "but it worked out to be much, much longer."
With Universal having final cut over the movie, the producers duly demanded that the finished film be no longer than 150 minutes. Production illustrator Ron Miller said of the decision, "What [the studio] wanted cut was plot development, character development and exposition in favour of action, there was little left that made sense [...] Once David handed over the final cut of Dune, he washed his hands of the entire project being understandably disappointed and disgusted."
The resulting film was widely panned by critics, and Dune underperformed at the box-office. Although regarded as a cult classic, Lynch has remained distanced from it, and has, to date, refused offers to oversee a restored, longer cut.