A couple of months back, I posted an opinion piece on extended versions of film and how relevant they are to the theatrical release. I basically talked about the different aspects of extended cuts that are interesting, as well as how and why they are released. I will be doing a Best Extended Cuts list later on this week, I hope. But right now, I want to revisit the subject of extended cuts. Why? There were two movies released this year that I want to focus on: Batman V. Superman and Warcraft. Why these two movies? When I saw these movies, it felt like they were missing things and important clues as well as plot points and subplots. One of the reasons that I bring up Batman V. Superman is because they announced an extended cut of the film before the actual film was released back in March. The extended version of the film will be released next month, and will feature about 30 minutes of additional footage reintegrated into the film. I’m not opposed to that, as I think there’s a good movie in there somewhere, and hopefully the extended cut will fix some of those problems. My issue is with them announcing the extended cut of the film before the movie was even released. That brings up a number of questions regarding the film’s quality during post-production.
I understand that a movie studio needs a movie to be within a certain run time, between 2-3 hours so the audience doesn’t fall asleep. But when you release a movie that throws so much material at the audience, you are actually doing damage to the film itself. If you’re going to throw that amount of story points, characters and events, you need to give the story of the film room and time to develop properly. Warcraft ran at a little over two hours, but it tossed so much lore and characters at you, it didn’t have time to properly explain what was going on or giving the characters time to grow. This is why extended cuts or almost a requirement in this day and age, especially for home video. According to various sources, including Dark Horizons, the original cut of Warcraft was 2 hours and 40 minutes. That’s an additional 40 minutes that could have been used to further explain what was going on in the movie for your average movie-goer. So, who is responsible for cutting those movies down to an “acceptable” run time? Is it the director or is it the movie execs? In certain cases, it’s the director. When a director decides to cut a movie down from a previous cut, he’s usually got his hands all over and is his responsibility. You can tell the difference when a movie has been cut by a director or by a movie execs. The execs are fairly obvious, because they want to plant more butts into theater seats, so they want to get the movie down to a run time that they feel won’t alienate audiences. This is what I hate about movie studio executives: They think that the audiences are stupid. I can’t even begin to tell you how untrue that is. With the Internet and social media today, we have almost unlimited access to information. You know when a studio exec has screwed with a movie. Alien 3 is a PERFECT example, as is Daredevil and Batman V. Superman.
For movies like Batman V. Superman, it feels like the movie studios don’t have a whole lot of faith in the film that they are trying to produce, hence the extended cut which hits home video next month. Are the issues behind the scenes THAT bad, that the movie studios have to start interfering with production? We’ve seen how often that plays out, and most of the time it’s not pretty. Again, I use Alien 3 as an example. The studios didn’t trust David Fincher to really get the project done the way they felt it should be done, so they kept getting in his business and changed things without telling him about it. This had the effect of driving the director off the film. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that film making is a business and that movie studios are basically gambling on whether or not a movie will make a profit or break even. It’s kind of like Russian Roulette, in that regard. Sometimes, though, you have to take a leap of faith and hope that you get it right. New Line Cinema took a massive risk with Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings movies, and look how well that ended up. They gave Jackson the go-ahead to make The Return of the King a 3.5 hour film. Audiences ate it up. Those movies did so well that the studio pretty much gave Jackson the green light to revisit his movies and released the Special Extended Editions of the films, which added a whole lot more to them.
Extended Cuts serve a real purpose. A lot of the time, its usually because the director of a particular film feels that his movie isn’t good enough, so he ends up revisiting it later and adds more to the film. Take Aliens and Terminator 2 for example. The theatrical versions were GREAT movies, but the extended cuts made them even more special, because they helped elaborate certain plot points and allowed for more character development. That’s not a bad thing. What is a bad thing is when you’re trying to release a movie, but you have to announce an extended cut before the actual film is released. Sometimes, a director is happy with the film that he/she released to theaters, but is entirely willing to show them an alternate version of the film just to show audiences what could’ve been. X-Men: Days of Future Past is an example of that. The Rogue Cut of the film was released last year and featured an almost different take on the film with the character of Rogue being placed in some of the more important scenes. Was it necessary? No…but it was awesome.
I don’t hate the two movies that inspired this post. I really don’t. In fact, I rather liked them. But the problems that I encountered with them brought them down a bit. I just wish movie studio execs would just allow directors the latitude and flexibility that they need to give us a proper movie. If they all did that, then the need for extended cuts would be greatly reduced. However, the execs only see dollar signs and nothing else. That can have a serious impact on whether or not a movie turns out well. Extended Cuts shouldn’t be necessary, they should be optional and a bit of a bonus for the audience. The theatrical film should be able to stand well enough on its own without the need to have further edits post-release.