Films Recut By the Studios for Release

[stypee]

I was just thinking about this when I saw that Waterworld was mentioned on the main page.

What films can you think of that were re-cut, stripped down, etc. by studios for release?

Brazil
Waterworld
Heaven's Gate (mostly decided by Cimino)
the Breakfast Club


There quite a few more, I just can't think of anymore right now

[Dan Mancini]

Touch of Evil
Kingdom of Heaven

[Gabriel Girard]

Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid
Supernova

Anything with the Alan Smithee name on it.

[Burson_Fouch]

Leone's masterpiece Once Upon a Time in America was butchered by the studio in it's initial US release.

Von Strohiem's Greed was another film severely compromised by the studio prior to it's release.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis was pretty badly compromised for it's US release, with the original negatives being destroyed during WW2.

This is a story has old as Hollywood itself.

[Gabriel Girard]

The Magnificent Ambersons

Nightbreed

[mkiker2089]

The clearest example to me is Leon. It was only cut by a few minutes but those minutes totally neutered the movie.

Wicker Man was also cut a bit. The studio was a little more clever in this one because the changes almost worked. Actually many think the short version is better. They cut it so his stay was in one night instead of two and put most of the events in order so you didn't actually lose that much. It changes the feel of the movie however because the shorter time frame means the events were more frantic.

Any studio cuts that improved the movie?

I'm not sure who cut Star Trek: The Motion Picture or why they didn't cut more, but the shorter that movie is the better it seems to get. There's a good 60 minutes in there if you remove the fluff around it. If it has to do with the bald headed woman being "hot" then cut it, if it involves extended shots of special effects cut it, and a few other examples I can't recall right now. I know there's precedent for fan edits of movies and those are usually allowed to a certain extent. I'd like to see someone shorten this one way down.

I like the studio version of Brazil and I liked the tacked on ending for Blade Runner. Sometimes artists forget that movies should tell a full story and end in a way that fits the logic of the story arc. We've also debated the fact that you can indeed have giant crowded cities and many extinctions without losing all of the undeveloped land. That however would start a heated debate on it's own.

[Kenneth Morgan]

I'm not sure who cut Star Trek: The Motion Picture or why they didn't cut more, but the shorter that movie is the better it seems to get. There's a good 60 minutes in there if you remove the fluff around it. If it has to do with the bald headed woman being "hot" then cut it, if it involves extended shots of special effects cut it, and a few other examples I can't recall right now. I know there's precedent for fan edits of movies and those are usually allowed to a certain extent. I'd like to see someone shorten this one way down.

For the initial release, there wasn't time to cut much of anything. The filming ran over budget and behind schedule, and had loads of conflict behind the scenes. The prints were pretty much literally taken from the developer to the theater for the premiere. It wasn't until the DVD release that Robert Wise and the SPFX artists were able to recut the film, shortening some of the V'Ger scenes and re-doing some of the visuals with CGI (though not to "Star Wars" OT levels). What is now available is basically the Director's Cut, the way Wise wanted it (though not necessarily the way Roddenberry wanted it).

As for the "good 60 minutes", that's not too far from the truth. The original story was meant as the first episode of a resurrected "Star Trek" series, but Paramount decided to turn it into a theatrical movie after the success of "Star Wars" and "Close Encounters". For details, you can check on a book about "Star Trek: Phase 2", or Shatner's "Star Trek Movie Memories".

[Attrage]

The clearest example to me is Leon. It was only cut by a few minutes but those minutes totally neutered the movie.
.

Leon (The Professional) wasn't cut by the studio. It was cut by the film makers. What I mean is, the film makers were not asked to cut it by the studio. The director and producer decided to trim the more risque bits with Jean Reno and Natalie Portman's "relationship", and her being trained as a killer, due to some test audiences reacting negatively to those aspects of the film. For the trimmed down US release it was made into a more conventional action pic.

Alien 3, on the other hand, is a well-known example of studio interference, hence David Fincher all but disowning the film (and, I believe, never working for 20th Century Fox again).

[stypee]

Star Trek: The Motion Picture could put the makers of Ambien out of business.


I forgot to mention the John Travolta epic Battleship Earth or was it Battlefield? Doesn't matter, sucked either way.

[Dunnyman]

Not many people know this, but Kurosawa had problems with the studios, too. He had a bright new star he wanted to put in a film and the studio refused, forcing him to change the title as well.

I mean, the film turned out OK, but damn, what it might have been....