Tuesday, February 4, 2014

10 Movies Ruined (or Almost Ruined) by Studios

This list tested poorly with women 18-34, so we're going to cut out 60% and give it a happy ending.

As any good movie fan knows, filmmaking can sometimes be a painful birthing process. Plenty a talented filmmaker has seen his or her film taken away by producers or studio execs and turned into something they believed to be more commercial, more marketable, more upbeat, more bland. Sometimes, that filmmaker can win out in the end, even when it's years after the fact. Sometimes, that original version never exists for the public to see -- they're fairy tales of what might have been, passed down through generations of movie lovers.

Here are just a few movies that studio interference wrecked -- or might have wrecked if not for filmmaker persistence, word of mouth and the advent of the "special edition."

1. Brazil (1985) Entire books have been written on the battle of Brazil (coincidentally, that book is called The Battle Of Brazil). It's the masterpiece that almost wasn't -- Terry Gilliam's visionary, beautiful and sad futuristic epic cut down to 90 minutes and given an ill-fitting happy ending by Universal's then-chairman Sid Sheinberg. Gilliam went rouge, taking out full page ads in Variety asking "Why won't you release my movie?" and eventually holding secret screenings of his cut. That bit of subterfuge led to the Los Angeles Critics Association naming Brazil the best film of 1985 despite the fact that it hadn't yet been released, ultimately forcing Universal's hand and allowing Gilliam to release something much closer to his version. The Criterion Collection has offered the best possible document of the whole fiasco first on laserdisc, then DVD and now Blu-ray; their release of the film offers all three cuts (the short "Love Conquers All" version, the theatrical cut and Gilliam's director's cut), plus lots of extras explaining the whole history. And to think one studio exec almost denied audiences one of the greatest American movies of the last 50 years.
2. Once Upon a Time in America (1984) Another movie with a tortured history and more cuts than you can keep track of, Sergio Leone's masterpiece got fucked over so badly by the studio that he never made another film (good job, America!). The director's original cut ran 4 hours and 29 minutes; by the time it premiered at Cannes in 1984, it was trimmed to 3 hours and 49 minutes. That version reportedly earned a 15 minute standing ovation. For its American release, the film was cut again to 139 minutes -- over 90 minutes shorter than the Cannes version and two hours shorter than Leone's original cut. The flashback structure was removed, the story was told in chronological order and the movie made no sense, prompting the great Roger Ebert to call Once Upon a Time in America a "murdered movie" (he gave the European cut four stars, the American version only one). The 229 minute cut was eventually released on DVD (and later Blu-ray), while a 251 minute cut screened at Cannes in 2012. There are still people working behind the scenes on recovering and restoring those last 18 minutes. Hopefully we'll get to see Leone's full movie in our lifetime, but even if we don't we can be comforted by the fact that the 229 minute version is a total masterpiece and one of my favorite movies of the '80s.

3. All the Pretty Horses (2000) - Billy Bob Thorton's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel had somewhere between one to two hours chopped out of it by Miramax -- a move that was vocally criticized by star Matt Damon in the press. The finished film is not very good and remains one of the most notorious victims of Harvey Weinstein's legendary interference. A director's cut has been rumored for several years, but is apparently being held up by issues with the score. I'd be willing to give Thorton's intended version a second (first) chance.

4. Knights of Badassdom (2014) - I've written about this one at length already. It's currently being rolled out via Tugg (a service in which anyone can bring a screening to his or her hometown if enough tickets are pre-sold, because that is how you debut your movie) before a VOD release in February. Joe Lynch's film fell victim to questionable, possibly criminal business practices having nothing to do with him or the movie and, after being caught up in red tape for three years, a cut was thrown together (without Lynch's input or support) to avoid a lawsuit. Contrary to what I once believed, an actual director's cut does not currently exist, as Lynch was never able to finish the movie. Unlike Brazil, this one is unlikely to have a happy ending. Fuck the people that ruined something that sounded really special.
*To be fair, I have not yet seen the Not-Joe-Lynch-cut of Knights of Badassdom, but early word from those who have is not positive.
5. Blade Runner (1982) Does anyone not know the story of Blade Runner at this point? Check out the insanely good four-hour documentary Dangerous Days on the special edition DVD and Blu-ray for the whole history. After bad test screenings in 1982, studio execs demanded changes to Ridley Scott's film, taking out scenes and entire themes and adding in the now-infamous bored voiceover by Harrison Ford ("I'm definitely not a robot..." - Rick Deckard). At last count, there were seven different versions of Blade Runner, culminating with the "Final Cut" released in conjunction with the film's 25th anniversary in 2007. Though different versions have their charms, the "Final Cut" is the most faithful to Scott's original vision and the only version over which he had complete control.

6. Alien 3 (1992) David Fincher's first film was a disaster almost from the outset, as production began without a finished script and scenes were rewritten as they were being shot. Fincher eventually pretty much disowned the finished film, not because it was taken away from him in post production like so many others on this list, but because it was never really his movie in the first place. Too many cooks, too much oversight and bad decision making by Fox killed Alien 3 even while it was being made. It, too, would eventually be cut up; a longer "assembly cut" was released as part of the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy box set, but done so without the participation or endorsement of Fincher -- the only of the franchise's directors who refused to take part in any of the special features for that release. Since its release, Alien 3 has developed a fervent cult following of people who swear it is secretly great. I am not one of those people.

7. Nightbreed (1990) Clive Barker's second film, based on his 1988 novella Cabal, was badly mistreated by Morgan Creek when it was released; the studio forced large cuts and refused to market it as a monster movie, despite the fact that it is ENTIRELY ABOUT MONSTERS. The version released to theaters has a lot to like, but also has a choppy logic in the way that it jumps around from one idea to the next. A much longer version, called "The Cabal Cut," was assembled in 2009 using VHS workprint footage of pretty much everything that was shot and has shown at several film festivals around the country. I still haven't seen it, but those who have mostly called it an interesting mixed bag. Scream Factory originally announced a Blu-ray of "The Cabal Cut" later this year, but it was just announced this week that the version they put out will actually be a shorter "Director's Cut" supervised by Clive Barker, who had no input on "The Cabal Cut." That means fans will finally be able to see Nightbreed as the director originally intended. Spoken as someone who kind of digs the theatrical version, that's fucking great news.
8. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) Few directors got jerked around by studios more than Peckinpah (save for the last guy on this list, of course). This brilliant revisionist western (with a score by Bob Dylan, who plays a small role) was taken away from Peckinpah after a preview screening and recut by the studio, who hacked away about 20 minutes and totally fucked up the film. A critical and financial flop upon release, the movie's reputation was eventually restored when Peckinpah's preview version was released on video and laserdisc in 1988; a "special edition" came out on DVD in 2005 that combined parts of the theatrical cut and the preview cut, attempting to come closer to Peckinpah's original vision than any previous edition (and restoring the vocals to Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in one of the movie's best scenes). Though it has a rough history, it's now rightly regarded as a masterpiece and one of Peckinpah's best films. It's my favorite after The Wild Bunch.

9. Killing Them Softly (2012) Australian director Andrew Dominik had been recut on his 2007 western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (not so as you would know, as that movie is pretty much perfect), so hopefully he was used to it when The Weinstein Company took nearly an hour out of this Brad Pitt crime thriller based on the novel Cogan's Trade. This a film that feels abbreviated; there are flashes of brilliance and the movie still mostly works, but I suspect there's a truly great film here that was cut off at the knees. Audiences hated the theatrical cut (giving it the rare "F" on CinemaScore, a worthless measure of the opinions of dummies) and the movie bombed, meaning the Weinsteins fucked with a great director's art for nothing.

10. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Macbeth (1948), Mr. Arkadin (1955), Touch of Evil (1958) Poor Orson Welles.

23 comments:

  1. Do you think you feel more strongly about a film, one way or the other, when you know there has been a creative vs business/director vs producers conflict behind the scenes?

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    1. I think in some cases that's definitely true. Brazil would be a great movie even without knowing all the backstory, but feels even more special because of it -- we almost never got to see it (as it's supposed to be). Plus, the behind the scenes stuff shows art imitating life in a way that makes the film feel much more personal and relevant. It feels like Terry Gilliam is bleeding all over the screen.

      I sometimes give movies a pass because of it, too. Sticking with Terry Gilliam, I don't think The Brothers Grimm totally works (I like it more than a lot of people), but I know there was a huge struggle behind the scenes (because Terry Gilliam) and the movie is a mess as a result. I know when I'm watching the movie that it's not what anyone intended to make.

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  2. Cool column!

    I saw The Cabal Cut of Nightbreed. As a fan of the theatrical cut, I would say you're not missing much. It was really more like Judd Apatow's Nightbreed. I appreciate their efforts but it doesn't work at all. Hoping the Cliver Barker director's cut is the best version yet. I really like that movie.

    Can you think of instances where the director's cut may have been rightfully trimmed to the movie's benefit? Donnie Darko comes to mind for me.

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    1. Donnie Darko is a good one. Not that it's in the same league as most of these other movies, but I don't like the director's cut of Any Given Sunday, mostly for that horrible eyeball shot. Oh, and the director's cut of American Gangster is AWFUL because of the last 10 minutes.

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    2. I'm pretty sure the Broncos lost some eyeballs during the Super Bowl. That game was like watching Liu Kang's brother die on repeat.

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  3. Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Movie. They went as far as making the host segments of "The Incredibly Melting Man" a parody of their fight with Universal.

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  4. I got another example from a Ridley Scott film: 2005's Kingdom of Heaven. The one that was released in theaters was basically a generic historic action film, causing the movie to get mixed to negative reviews from critics in the process and underperform at the US box office (though it did better around the world). Then the longer version came out on DVD and things really made more sense, among them was an additional backstory for Orlando Bloom's character.

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  5. All of these stories bum me out, but the KINGHTS OF BADASSDOM debacle really makes me sick. Such a bummer.

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    1. No movie deserves KOB's treatment. Maybe Room 237.

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  6. THE INVASION, the most recent update of INVASION OF THE BODYSNATCHERS. I've heard that they cut over an hour and completely changed the tone/direction of what the original director was going for. I'm endlessly fascinated by movies and stories in that vein, and I wonder if there really was a watchable movie in there because as it stands it's a fairly atrocious mess.

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    1. I still haven't seen it, but I believe the Wachowskis were brought in to do reshoots on that one.

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    2. They were brought in to rewrite and James McTeague did the reshoots. I'd love to know what Oliver Hirschbiegel's cut looked like. I believe he completed a cut before the reshoots/restructuring happened.

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  7. The annals of studios botching films are long and numerous, so complaining that any particular movie is left out of a list of only ten such projects is both undeniably petty and missing the point of the exercise.

    ... That said, I still gotta yowl over the omission of The Golden Compass. New Line cut the script and running time to under two hours (because audiences fled in droves from the uniformly 2+-hour Harry Potters), recast a voice role just to put Ian McKellan's name on the poster, and ripped out the ending, thereby forcing them to resequence the whole second half of the movie. And that's not even mentioning censoring the anti-Catholic critique.


    As for Killing Them Softly, I too enjoyed the movie, but didn't particularly want to spend any longer with the characters than I just had. It seemed like a pretty sophomoric crime pic, all in all, with some ham-fisted political overtones (which I actually liked) that needed no elaboration. Compared to the bloated, shapeless mess that is Zero Dark Thirty (yeah, I went there - that script is the epitome of haphazard, and the entire raid sequence has just about nothing to do with Chastain's character), I'm not really sorry that Dominik's sprawling pulp saga was truncated. I can't say for sure if this was the case with this film, but sometimes the studios are in the right.

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  8. Any Asian film imported/distributed by the Weisteins. Their next victim will be the Korean hit "Snowpiercer".

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  9. This has happened to Wes Craven a bunch of times. He wanted DEADLY FRIEND to be a Spielberg-style “fantasy in the suburbs” movie, but producers insisted he turn it into horror. Conversely, VAMPIRE IN BROOKLYN was supposed to be full-on horror, until producers insisted on casting Eddie Murphy and turning it into a comedy.

    What to make of CABAL/NIGHTBREED? The book has a great first half and lousy second half, while the movie has a lousy first half and an awesome second half. If only the better parts of both could be mind-melded together somehow. Sadly, it’d probably take a remake/reboot to really get it right.

    The only time I can think of studio meddling turning out for the better was in the original FINAL DESTINATION, in which test audiences preferred the scares over the spiritual/reincarnation mumbo-jumbo, forcing a re-edit, probably for the better.

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  10. Scream Factory is, truly, doing the Lord's work. That is all.

    Oh, wait -- speaking of director cuts that are...kinda weird, Mann's Last of the Mohicans and Thief both have some head-scratching changes. Mohicans, for instance cut Hawkeye's line "I think someday you and I are going to have a serious disagreement" (too much of a typical action crowdpleaser type line?) as well as the gory punctuation to Magua's death scene. Thief took the final shootout and sped up some of the slo-mo shots throughout.
    I have no idea why Mann did any of this, and I still love those movies, but I kinda wish he'd left them alone.

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  11. Can't believe we've gone these long without mentioning "Exorcist: The Beginning" (aka "Exorcist IV"). I mean, why hire Paul "Cat People" Schrader to direct your horror prequel and then do a 180 and hire Renny "Cliffhanger" Harlin to redo it? Why not go to Harlin in the first place and save yourself as a studio the aggravation, cost and bad publicity? Better yet, why not stop doing sequels and reboots to movies that were already done well the first time out? Reboot/remake "Night of The Lepus" or "Ghost Ship" since they were fucked out of the gate and can only be improved upon. :-(

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    1. They did remake Ghost Ship. It was garbage.

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    2. Great opening thought with the wire decapitations!

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    3. That may be the best opening scene to a godawful movie ever. So much promise, so little fulfillment.

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    4. Speaking of Ghost Ship, I wanted SO BADLY to like Dark Castle Entertainment movies and they are almost all terrible. Except Splice, Orphan and the underrated House of Wax. Yeah, I said it.

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    5. Agreed on all counts, including House of Wax.

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    6. The actual house of wax in the remake of House of Wax is really well done and the ending with it all burning down is pretty spectacular. I feel like people didn't give that movie a chance because of the Paris Hilton stunt casting.

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