Alternate cuts

Hello, I'm Len Wiseman, director of Total Recall, and we are watching the director's cut, which I'm very excited about. I'm really happy with the theatrical cut. There's just things that, as a filmmaker, that you put a lot of time into that you really start to miss from the original cut, and so it's great for me to be able to work together with Sony. They were very supportive of putting out a director's cut.

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to pacing and clarity, which comes up a lot. And that said, I think there's also those who actually enjoy either a slower pace or actually more ambiguity within the story, having to play a little bit more detective work within the plot. And I'm hoping that those of you who are watching, just the nature of checking out a director's cut

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I'm Len Wiseman, director of Total Recall, and we are watching the director's cut, which I'm very excited about. I'm really happy with the theatrical cut. There's just things that, as a filmmaker, that you put a lot of time into that you really start to miss from the original cut, and so it's great for me to be able to work together with Sony. They were very supportive of putting out a director's cut.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

Hi everybody and welcome to the continuing epic commentary for the extended cut of the two towers. I'm Peter Jackson. And I'm Fran Walsh. And I'm Philippa Boyens. The first thing we can talk about is the New Line logo because what people won't realise is that the logo that New Line gave us was quite scratched and jumpy and old and so we actually put it through weta, the digital effects facility, and we cleaned it up and stabilised it and sharpened it and gave it back to New Line as a special little present.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

about a million different ways to get the elvish rope into the... I know. Because it was just such an iconic moment. It's a lovely part of the book, and it was always tough to fit it in. It didn't have a story imperative, unfortunately. Well, you realise it's become a DVD special edition kind of thing now because the giving of the elvish rope to Sam was in the Fellowship extended cut, and then the using of it is in the Two Towers extended cut. If you look at the movie version, it doesn't exist. It's kind of cute.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

Now we're back on location shot. Two years apart. What food have we got left? Well, let me see. Oh, yes, lovely. Lambus bread. The lambus bread is a funny little thing, too, because the lambus bread was introduced in the Fellowship extended cut, but it was in a theatrical version of The Two Towers, so unless you knew something of Tolkien or had watched the DVD, you wouldn't have a clue what this stuff was, but, you know, too bad.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

We actually have a few more seconds of strangling in the extended cut because remember the MPAA asked us to reduce the intensity and we shortened one of the strangling shots and then we put it back at its original length here. So this is a complete full strangulation, never seen before, here exclusively on DVD. In this shot here, old Tom, who's trying his hardest to be dead, actually blinked right in the middle of the shot, but Andy's performance was so great on this particular take

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

We actually ended up picking quite conservative takes because they shot five or six takes of this particular sequence. And Billy and Dom gave us a lot of variations in just how stoned they were. And there were some actually quite funny ones where they were incredibly stoned. And I ended up using ones that were a little bit more conservative. But there are some very funny outtakes. This plays particularly well if you've seen the extended cut of Two Towers, of course, and seen them find Saruman's hoard.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

The Return of the King, we would have made so many different choices. It's OK being in the extended cut because, in a sense, the existence of the extended cut completes what's effectively a box set. It's three movies. The end of one film and the beginning of the next becomes less relevant. You haven't got a year gap between the rest of these films anymore. You've now got them sitting on your shelf as one complete set.

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You know, wanting to... It's only subtle, but he makes it. Well, he got paid more than Aliens just for them to use his face. You know, the sort of digital little face they have very much in a theatrical cut to sort of condense this opening. I think fundamentally they should have come up with a cleverer way of separating Ripley off, and they could have done. Indeed, the author of the novelisation did that. He kept Newt alive but separated them. I don't know how he did it, but...

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late 90s there was a vhs work print going around of alien 3 which had a lot of these scenes in it and some of those scenes in that extended cut on the work print aren't in this because this is just a vhs copy of a of a print and that was all the talk was like oh my god how we get to see this you can find it on archive.org the work print um but seeing you know alien 3 and it's as close to it gets close to david fincher's

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kind of vision, or I think the script Charles de la Zurica had kind of worked from. It made me appreciate the film more, I think, in its current state, in its extended cut. The theatrical cut I felt was, you know, when you sort of compare the two, it's missing a lot of stuff. But it's stuff they left out of the theatrical cut in this cut. So there's kind of, I think maybe for some fans, there was still like a...

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

Hi, I'm Peter Jackson, the director and co-writer and producer of The Lord of the Rings. Hi, I'm Fran. I have a writing credit on the film and a producing credit. Hi, I'm Philippa Boyens. I only have a writing credit on the film. And we're up here in our office in Miramar, New Zealand, having a look at this movie. A little bit of a different version of the film than what you're used to seeing in the theatres. This is the extended cut version. Got a few new scenes that none of you have seen before, so it'll be fun to talk about those.

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

One of the most significant changes from the theatrical version into this extended cut is the way that we introduced the Hobbits and particularly Bilbo Baggins. At the time that we thought, we didn't think we were going to have a prologue and we were going to open the movie with the writing of Bilbo's book and hearing his voice describing Hobbits. Once we decided to go back to the concept of including the prologue and the prologue became seven minutes long,

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Peter Jackson Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens

then this sequence started to feel like there was just too much narration. To some degree, that's probably true, but it is such a delightful sequence that I just felt that it deserved to be seen. And so, you know, for good or bad, here it is on this extended cut. Obviously, it establishes the book that Bilbo is writing, which we now see later in Rivendell.

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so her casting was probably predicated to some extent on a plausible resemblance to both Debbie Harry and Julie Kaner, though they actually hardly blur at all in the final cut. Sonia was born in Ottawa Valley, Ontario in September 1958, and she has had her most lasting success in television, where she has worked steadily in such series as Falcon Crest, Airwolf, Odyssey 5, and Street Legal, for which she's won a Gemini Award.

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but he wants to record some images that Max might project, which is where this helmet comes in. It's a recording device. The reference to test subjects has no point of reference in the final cut. Barry also tells Max that he seems to be functioning reasonably well in hopes to find out why, which also doesn't quite make sense here, because if you're paying any kind of attention, Max has become something of a mess.

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which is one of those cases where yesterday's slight exaggeration becomes a bullseye prophecy of life as we know it today. When Les Carlson comes out, he originally had a line where he picked out an individual salesman in the crowd named Pete. Aye, Pete. Hence the later line, even Pete ought to be able to sell the hell out of a classy campaign like that, which has no setup in the final cut. ...Statesman and patron of the arts, Lorenzo de' Medici...

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And we actually painted the zigzag of tire tread on his face, buried him. Buried him and had him come up. And it was an elaborate gag and it took us like four hours. And it was very funny, like the truck ran over him. And for some reason, the executives at Trimark said, no, that's too cartoony. Oh, really? Let's cut it out. And of course, now I think these are the things that we should go do the director's cut and put back in. But it was in one of my first cuts. But yeah.

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which actually, and I don't know if I mentioned early on, I mentioned it somewhere, that we had to actually, we got a PG-13 by the ratings board when we, the final cut, or one of the cuts, and we had to go in and add two more fucks for Jennifer actually said, leave us the fuck alone or something, and that gave us the R because the picture was really, you know, wasn't, you know,

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But in retrospect, I think we should have put that comedy back in. But hopefully, maybe someday a director's cut. And there's our set of colors, and this was all built in a soundstage. And... It'd be a pretty strange sight to come home to. Yes. Thrashed, but organized. I think something got in here.

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Len Wiseman

My name is Len Wiseman. I'm the director of the film. I'm sitting here with Kate Beckinsale and Scott Speedman. And Kate plays Selene, obviously. And Speedman, I think you were one of the set PAs. Yeah, set PA. I got promoted. That's Speedman right there. - That's me. That's me. Or Michael. Michael. - Yeah, it's Michael. You've got a lovely young back. - I do, really nice little back. So we're watching... This is an extended cut. This is not a director's cut. What it is, It's a version that's put together... ...to show you what's missing from the original film... ...and what had been cut out and what's been changed. And I'll go into some detail, not too boring... ... about why that happened. I like that type of thing. Do you? - That was Nate, right? That was Nate. That was Nate Robinson.

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Len Wiseman

There should have been a sinister laugh there. I love evil, sinister laughs. Those are the best. They're so funny, man. Michael should have belted one out. - If anyone could, it's him. He definitely can. See, we just bashed open one door. I was quite feeble in this one. It took a wee bit. Well, remember you kept locking your wrists? Like a ballerina? - Yeah. Those days are gone. - Gone. What's that? - No idea. Where are we? - This is a movie called Underworld. It's about vampires fighting... I'm glad you didn't make me blow dust off it. Wasn't there a movie we saw where... ...someone blew dust off five things? It irritated me. No, don't say what it was. - Yeah, I won't say the movie. What was it? - I'm not telling. Screw it. It was poor. - It was a poor movie. There was a lot of... - Dust blowing. Dust blowing. - Yeah, that sucks. Did you draw these, babe? - I didn't draw these. No, I didn't. - You can draw? I try. This is an extended scene. Let me talk about this. Okay. I'm not in it, so... - No, this is actually... ... Just goes into depth a little bit more about... ... how the Lycans were taken as slaves, and you see the branding here... ...and how they were all... - Why wasn't this in? It's cool. It's pacing. It was just taking too long... Who's Korgel? - Yeah, who is Korgel? I think he was, like, one of the transportation guys. And it shows that everybody-- Like, with the actual brands that, you know... ...Lucian has the brand of... With a V in it, so he was kind of... as a... Like Viktor's cattle, of sorts, so... I think this should have been in. This is cool. I agree with you. - Yeah. That's helpful. This is an extended version, ithas some stuff... ...that would have been in a director's cut... ...but then also some stuff that's in here that... ...was taken out for good reason. - I really like this. It looks thick for skin. It is, and looks like Play-doh when it's ripped off. Now, who's that? That is Lucian, who's in this movie called Underworld that.... I didn't see his head, man. Did you get a script? - Yeah, I read it. We don't know Lucian, even though we've seen him. It's him. He's got that necklace. So I'm just wondering... I mean, I know... lf you were asking me, I would have said Lucian, but I wanted to know. We're coming out with an animated version for children. You can get that. He only read his bit. You know that. - They only sent me my scenes. This is good. I like this. - This movie? Yeah, it's good. - You should maybe rent it. I should rent it. It's funny now. I get really... - Protective? In Blockbuster, some guy next to me was deciding whether or not he was... ...going to buy Underworld or Pirates of the Caribbean. And it really makes me quite nervous now when I see stuff like that. What did he buy? - I actually had... Pirates of the Caribbean. - I actually had to-- The good thing is... I said, "Oh, I would kind of go for that one right there. That's a good one." You did? - I did. And he said, "You know, I would have bought it... ...but I've rented it three times, and I should've bought it the first time." So that was good. - That's cool. Look at you exposing yourself. There's Forrest going in for the kill. Look, there's, again, there's close, close talking. This is the very first day for me. For everybody. Do you remember the conversation about repeating the lines? Me? - No, just with anybody. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then I did it. Did I do it? You did it once, and I said I liked that. When I do it, it's great. - You can pull it off. No, but I actually like this scene. I actually... No, I think this worked well. It's because I wasn't there. - You can tell it's, like, our first day. We don't look tired and... - I was really stressed. That was stressful. - It was the first scene I've done. lt was a really small set. Everybody was, like, crammed in. lt was a tense day. Everybody was there. That's always a tense day, but, for whatever reason, it was extra tense. Between reels, we were talking a bit about the Internet. And apparently, Kate found a site where it's discussed in a forum... ... that's discussing whether or not Len Wiseman... ...iS the worst person on the planet. - What? Based on what? And I say, "Yes." - Based on what? "He's a liar, a thief, a coward, a highwayman, something." How does he know you so well? Who is it? They're talking about whether-- It's, like, listing about, "He's a coward." Why would they call you a coward? - Because he's a big, old fraidy pants. But no, seriously. Did you read on or just turn it off? We read on. It's actually a bunch of... - They said he poses like a gangster. I pose like a gangster. - That is quite humourous. Sounds like a lot of jealousy to me. - It's a lot of jealous 16, 17 year olds. I thought it was all true. - Did you? This was the day you were mean to me, babe. Why were you mean? Because she was slowing down our day. I was not. - No, I don't even... You slow down your own damn day. - I don't even remember. I think there's a few witnesses to that. - Well, that's true. That's true. I know what it was. - What was it? I had arrived at 6 in the morning, and you wanted me to work through... ... Without lunch until 4, because it was convenient to you. But my child arrived three hours before, and I was... ... feeling a little bit like, you know, "Could I please go see my child... ...for the half-hour I'm promised?" - No, it actually... That's what it was. - I was not aware of that. You may not have been aware, but you were still an asshole about it. Crap. - There's a certain way that a movie... I feel like the child of divorced parents, I really do. I'm not aware when people eat lunch. That's the AD's thing. I wasn't talking about lunch but about parenting. Sometime, I'll take you through how a movie set operates. Oh, like you know, Mr. One-Movie. Oh, crap. This does not fare well.

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Len Wiseman

God, this day.... Again, it was.... You guys were just cracking up the whole day. We had to actually look full in the face and kiss each other. This kiss is actually taken out of the original. Oh, yeah, that's right. And you put It back in. Michael does not look happy about that. It's quite a long kiss there. - Yeah. What's going on? - Don't you remember, you and I? Remember, we were just like, "Why is he leaving us here?" Why am I leaving you? I was behind the camera going, "Excuse me." Most directors will shout "Cut" when they're done. I was yelling "Cut" and doing the clap. - You were not. You just had the drool coming out of one side of your mouth. A lot of wandering about that was cut. Again, this isn't a director's cut, this is an extended cut. And a lot of the stuff, you can see why it was taken out. It was just like things like this. lt wasn't necessary at the end of the day. Essentially, a director's cut, the difference... An extended cut is basically a longer movie that the director says: "This has got nothing to do with me." Yes. I mean, there's stuff in here that I wanted to see back in... . like Scott's back-story and Singe's original reveal. But a lot of the stuff, I was glad to see it go. That's my favourite shot of a werewolf... ...that low-angle roar. I thought he looked the most like a real animal. Good old Bill. I mean, he really did so much of that stuff himself. Oh, yeah. That's like, when he stabs with the sword here... ...this look that he's got with the baring the fangs. No, when he was doing all the fighting... ... he'd never even done a stage fight in his life. And he was in that water for hours at the end. Oh, yeah. And he's, you know, going up against, you know, Scott. Scott and the stunt guys, and.... No, he hung in there. We just beat the shit out of him too. It was really.... He was just exhausted and was... Freezing in that water too. - Yeah, it was. But he never, you know, put his hands up and said: "It's just, you Know, it's too much." Everybody was pretty good like that. - Oh, they were all-- They were great.

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Commentary With David Kalat

I'm the film historian who wrote a critical history and filmography of Toho's Godzilla series. It's a mouthful, I know, but it was among the first serious studies of Godzilla movies published in English, and I'm gosh darn proud of it. So I'm going to be your guide through this film and its companion alternate cut, Godzilla King of the Monsters. As I hope my introductory anecdote makes clear, I take this stuff seriously.

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Commentary With David Kalat

He studied Tsuburaya's personal print of King Kong, and then he went to the zoo to study how bears move. As far as he was concerned, this was an acting gig as serious a job as anything he'd previously done for Akira Kurosawa. Nakajima had been in Seven Samurai, and he'd also been in Stray Dog. Although he's co-credited with Katsumi Tezuka in this film, Nakajima has said that Tezuka almost never plays the role in any of the footage used in the final cut.

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When the name of Bill Carson is called out, Lee Van Cleef returns to the film as Angel Eyes. At this point in the theatrical cut, Van Cleef has been out of the picture for close to a full hour, which is unusual for one of the film's main stars. But his long absence was imposed on the film by the removal of that scene about 40 minutes into it, the scene he shared in the ruined fort, which ended with him being sent to this prisoner of war camp.

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This beating of Tuco was cut by roughly two minutes for the film's UK release until it was finally passed there without cuts in 1999. But even this version is cut from a longer version that still exists, though no longer in optimal form. It has been included with the extras on earlier releases of the film, and I suspect this one. And what happens in this more extended cut is that it becomes much more about the song than about the beating, which I feel is a dramatic miscalculation.

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not chicken feed by any stretch of the imagination, but less than half of what Magnum Force earned, United artist executive Stephen Bach reported that it returned rentals of a solidly profitable level, a respectable, if not spectacular, hit for Eastwood. It was Bach who, in his book Final Cut, suggested that Eastwood was unhappy when most of the praise for the film

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Over the past half decade, word is channeled through agents' offices and industry hangouts that the macho director who sets his films in tough-talking steel mills, sun-split deserts, and torture-happy jungles is a pre-op transsexual, readying himself for his final cut. The same piece mentions Cimino's foray into literary fiction, a novel called Big Jane. Later in life, he would write novels to be translated into French and then published.

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and stops him from killing her to check himself out in the mirror, which gives her a moment to get her jump on him. The actual killing of Virgil was something that in my cut, the director's cut, is a little longer, a little more violent. I just, I felt justified in giving this end of the scene this amount of violence and passion because

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...on Bronson whilst he's waiting and prepping for Clowns in Alabama to arrive. Which is brilliant. It's very, very funny. It just, when my final cut, it felt a little bit too long. So that's why I took it out. But if you've got the DVD, you can see it. The scene in the elevator, I think, is also... ...one of the great scenes in the movie. And really the tone of the scene...

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And now comes for a little bit of an inside situation. I cast for Radek, the Russian general here, Jürgen Prochnow. He's the star from Das Boot. Your old friend. Yeah, and I think if you have not yet bought Das Boot, you should do it now. Especially the new director's cut. Yeah, especially the new director's cut is very, very good. So here's Jürgen, and they get him out, and...

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They also did the amazing job on this boat, the director's cut sound-wise with a complete new sound. And here they were involved in every aspect of the sound also. No, they are doing amazing things and working on these gunshots and make them all sound so powerful and real at the same time. But they always add a little bit to it so that it goes a little bit beyond the real reality. But it doesn't take you out. It is still a gunshot, but it just sounds so much more

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You know, because what could be worse than seeing a creature that makes trophies out of predators? So that was kind of the idea with it. Didn't end up making it in the film. Didn't end up making it in the extended cut either. But, you know, we didn't have the time or money to paint them out of the back of that shot, so we just took all the green out. Hopefully no one will notice. Yeah, in the digital intermediate process.

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Yeah, for having very little setup time or anything at all. I mean, it was really running gun on this stuff. Those are some of the thermal shots as the Predator is getting deeper and deeper in the power plant here. The vision gets a little twitchier. Sort of EMP from parts of the power plant start interfering with his vision modes. Yeah, it's really funny how when you see the movie early on, you see directors cut probably...

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"You could talk about pebbles, Charles, and I would be listening... ...going, 'Really?" - Mesmerized. "Wow, pebbles. You can put them next to each other?" - Look at this. There's a girl in shiny trousers here, and you don't think about it. It's crazy how well it works... ...how completely you buy this mythology. Yeah. - I never really understood... ...why she has the latex, but... Because that's what one wears... ...when one's a Death Dealer. - Kill with style. Well, it also protects her against the sun, doesn't it? It's, like, SPF 200, that thing. But Alexander Corvinus gave her a gift, so she.... Protect them? They leave tonight. So there's.... "Is cowardice, plain and simple." This is-- I love this kind of dialogue. - Well, this is also... ...the father-son conflict. - Yeah. Yeah, you go, Theo. This was made up on the day, I think. - Yeah. This was Kate's suggestion, actually. Yeah. We had such a hard time. The entrance of the movie. - The entrance of her coming in... . Just felt clumsy. And what is she doing? She's just sitting there. And then Kate suggested, "What about if she cuts herself... ...ecause she's just realized that she, you know, can self-heal. She's drunk blood." - There was always this contemporary... This is like a contemporary version of a teenage-angst scene, I think. That's why it's so great. But it's not just that. But it's also about seeing actual physical cutting... ... looking at It heal, seeing the blood. lt works both as a teenage-angst thing, and as a just... A "who am I, what am I" kind of thing. And this scene-- This is actually one of the things that I really miss. And if we're ever gonna do a director's cut... ... this scene will be longer, because in the end.... The whole film would be a bit longer. Yeah, two minutes. But when the little girl... Kate gives the blood to her daughter here... ... later on, in the original version.... And it's my favorite shot of the movie because it's so beautiful. When she pulls the hand away and you saw her. And it's that perfect combination of beautiful and sexy and touching... ...at the same time. But it had to go. I'm not bitter. Just pissed. - I am. Very bitter. No, but and also Kate here. Seeing Selene like this is truly wonderful, I think. That was one of the things we talked about when we got the script... ...and we read it. So what we have here is Selene being a mother... ...which means she's more vulnerable... ...and emotional than before. She's also more ferocious and, you know, protecting her cub kind of thing. So she kills more uncontrolled, you know. She's not in control. That was one of the things we wanted. We don't-- We want to bring her out of her safety zone... ...was one of the things I remember saying in our pitch for the movie. I remember shooting that scene we just saw... ...and I'd say, "This is ultimate Goth." These girls in this room, talking about what to do. It's so Goth. That's why you guys took the movie. - Yeah. Actually it was. I just must say-- "

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Now you got it, right? - This is what I love. Once the gre... That's it going off. Okay. - Yeah. Well, I didn't know. Last night was the first time I had seen this shot finished. The MPAA, remember, was really worried... ...we were gonna put a giant set of genitalia on him. Oh, they did. - Oh, they did. Yeah, that's the director's cut version. This was hard, I think. Because we had just been in this violent extravaganza. And now for emotions. But I think it works. - It works great. Because Kate is good and India is good. "You came back for me." - Yeah. And I remem-- This-- All... The tears and so on on Kate is completely real. Yeah. - But this is why she is, you know... This is why Kate is a movie star. She times it so the tear comes exactly where you want it. And I remember.... You only get that from professional actors. They know their body like, you know, true musicians. Go. I'll send them... ...on a different path, buy you some time. This is a part of the movie where we struggled... ...tried to figure out what to do now. How do we end the movie? - Yeah. We went through so many different permutations. We did film Michael watching them. - Yep. From the roof. - Yep. This scene was always in the film. - Yeah. That she comes back and finds the.... There was a period where we weren't. No. This was actually decided... It was not in the script. This was halfway through the shoot, we realized we needed this scene. We didn't wanna end on a rooftop... ...because it's kind of cliché a little bit. We did it in our Swedish film, Storm, actually... So then we ended it on a rooftop. - So-- But, you Know.... Sometimes cliches work. - Yeah. I think it's better than a forest. lt worked for the voiceover. Yeah, it was in a forest. Yeah. That was-- Yeah. But you want a nice wide shot. - Right. You see the city, see the world. And.... - The close-ups. I remember waiting for Len to write this voiceover, it took forever. But then he got it, and it was great. - Then he delivers. Because you get this "fuck, yeah" feeling. I've always thought that it's Kate that writes them... ...but Len actually does write them. Well, we'll never know, will we? I like those guys. That's those Swedish guys, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. Wonderful writers, John Hlavin... ...Michael Straczynski, Allison Burnett. Yep. There's Len again. - Len and John Hlavin. Kevin Grevioux, shout-out to Kevin. - That's right. Anyone fancy a pint? - We have to trash everyone. We have to trash those guys for sure. - Producers. David Kern, there he is. - And David Coatsworth. Good on you, mate. Yeah, that's it. - That's it. Scott Kevan, DP. Excellent. Yep. - In the house. Claude Pare. - Yes. Award-winning production designer. Jeff McEvoy, the gentleman. - Yes. He was there the whole time. - Monique Prudhomme, costumes. Paul Haslinger, Underworld veteran. Are you gonna go through all of these? I'm just reading. It's not that hard. Tricia and Deb did all of the Underworlds too. Couple of small words here. - Needs no introduction. India, she was the third girl or second girl in the room. Remember that? - Yes, absolutely. And we just looked at each other. "This is the girl." "This is the girl." In, like, five seconds. Me and Bjérn never did big Hollywood movies. But you sure as hell had before. - Yes. "Does it work like this? Can we say yes?" You were like, "Yeah, yeah. I think we should go." That was amazing. That'll be the last time that ever happens in your career. When we saw Theo, we all liked him... ...from the very beginning too. - Yeah. But India was... She was the first day of casting. But Theo we cast in London, though. Yeah, but the moment we saw the tape, it was done. But that was after going through a lot of people in L.A. Yeah. A lot. - Yeah. Richard Wright. - Yeah, how about that? Yeah. Love that guy. Yeah. - Yeah. Paul Barry. I Know it sounds funny but... We forgot to shout-out to Paul Barry. Paul and Nee Nee. - Best first AD ever. And here it says.... - Brad Martin. Gets his own card, damn it. - Yes. As he should. You should work with him if you wanna do good action. Oh, you know-- I actually am right now. How about that? Good for you. I thought this Evanescence song worked too, quite frankly. Yep. America's biggest Goth band. They're Americans? Yeah. - Yeah. Dude. - Yeah. "Dude." - What? But there's-- It's... When you sit here... ...and look at the names of all the people that worked on the movie... ... you realize what a collaborative effort these things always are. The fact that the five of us can sit in a room... ...and talk about it is one thing... ...but the filmmakers are really everybody on this list. Well, but the other.... I agree, but at the same time l.... After we finished shooting the film, which was a very difficult shoot... ...we came back to Los Angeles and we cut at the Lakeshore offices... ...and Mans and Bjérn were there religiously every day... ...putting their heart and soul into the movie. And I think they were... They put their heart and soul into the movie... ...from the moment we met them to the moment the movie was finished. So as producers, I think we have to really thank them. Thank you very much. - Yeah. That was very nice words, Gary. Thank you. - You're welcome. We are as tall as we are... ...because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Yeah. - And I kept saying to myself... And this is the part where everybody turns this stuff off. Nobody's listening right now. - We worked our asses off. But James McQuaide delivered on those visual effects. I Know. I gotta tell you, man.... It only took five years off the end of his life. Oh, jeez. The best he's ever done. lt was fantastic. It is very therapeutic to watch this. It is, isn't it? Yeah. - Now it is done. We can move on. - It's done. Yep. And it's Friday night at 6:20 p.m. And.... Film's opening tonight. - Yeah. Have we got numbers back? Have we got numbers about how it's doing? Yeah, very good so far. The advance New York early-screening report... Excellent. Didn't you say that it did great in Thailand? Taiwan. - Taiwan. Thank you, people of Taiwan. - Yeah, thank you, Taiwan. Shout-out to Taiwan. All right, so this is pretty much it. Thanks, everybody, for listening to our babbling. And have a good night or a good day or whatever. Are you gonna say something in Swedish?

1:16:16 · jump to transcript →

too much material, but not twice as much material as you need. And we had a very unique situation, even at the time, in that contractually we had final cut. Amazing. But it was based on delivering a picture two hours or less. And so we cut it down from

1:33:15 · jump to transcript →

Sometimes the technicians have the final cut on these things. So it just went right to this? Yes. Mike, where are you? Mike! Now, do you recall how you thought of these, how you came up with the space gate? How you wanted it to be? It was always the chrome poles, but I do have to say that I did get some help from Reggie and his...

1:13:35 · jump to transcript →

Judd Nelson

See, this is where it was cool where we had John. He was definitely a collaborative director and sought to get the best out of us all, and was looking for behavior, you know. So, I think, the wisdom of he and Dede Allen and their choices in making this all work, 'cause we had so much footage, it was great to see. All these years later, we take it for granted, what we see the final cut to be. But the truth is that, like we were talking about, Dede would come to the set and she would closely work with John. And also, he gave us the freedom to play and just have fun. And certain things, like the stuff you're seeing with Judd spinning around. I'm sticking a pen in my mouth, stupid stuff. We had no idea whether it would arrive in the film or be a part of it. I didn't. We were just having fun. But once we knew what the space was, we had the parameters. Rehearsal was key. - Yeah, it was like shooting a play. That's how I recollect and look back at it. We shot this play for 35 days and we were... Mostly in sequence. - Yeah. Yeah, we were fortunate to be extracted from Hollywood, and all of a sudden in this suburban gym of Illinois, not far from where John had grown up. So, it was a fortunate thing that we felt like we were shooting a play, 'cause we also had a week of rehearsal, which was... No, we had more than a week. - Was it more? We had more than a week. In fact, we weren't done with our rehearsal time when Hughes went, "We're ready. Let's go." All the work we've done keeping our faces in the industry since and maintaining our careers, it's still... To this day, I don't think I've ever had that since. So, it was a real... A real rehearsal. - Yeah, it was a real luxury. It was also a lot of fun, 'cause it really bonded us and gave us a chance to get a sense of where we were all at, and also made the work better, yeah. And we built real history, as opposed to that you believe you've made up a history. We actually had real experiences. Even if it's something as simple as dinner four nights in a row, you at least have some real past and things will reveal themselves to you further along in the work. And Hughes really wanted it to sound authentic. So, he never limited us. If you came up with something, you never felt like, "Oh, wow, "we took it beyond the text." Big deal. And he was always looking for it to get to that point, anyway. The freedom that he gave us, the idea that he would trust us like that, which is the point of the film. Just because they are 17 years old doesn't mean they are 17 years dumb. There's a weird thing, though, about rehearsals and stuff like that, where you think... You even said, "I've never done that before or since." It always seems to work out when actors and stuff get those chances. You hear those stories over and over. But, for the most part, people, they just don't do it. Yeah, in terms of genre, too, this is something that broke a mold, in a way, 'cause it was, in the industry talk, a talking heads film. It's really about a bunch of people sitting around, talking. So again, the play analogy comes into play. We really felt like... I remember rehearsing, and we were in these positions. I remember walking into that space, and John going, "Okay, you sit over here." We would rehearse these scenes. So, by the time we shot them, we all had a good sense of each other. We were a solid group, and we also knew where we were going with it. Now it looks like a luxury, but to this day, I've often looked back and thought about that, that it was great intelligence in just doing that, putting us in together. We sat in a room... - I thought they were all gonna be like that. I really did. I look back on that and that is a high-water mark in terms of the importance of having everyone being on the same page. Right. If you get rehearsal time and if you shoot in sequence, it's not like you are trusting the other actor to know that in the scene before this they actually threatened to kill me. So, it's a little bit heavier. You don't have to do that because before we shot this scene, we shot the scene where he threatened to kill me, so we know that. It's a great collaboration. You don't realize it till you're blessed enough to work in the business. When you're on the set, you see that there's... You know, sometimes the best idea will come from the script supervisor, or sometimes it's the guy at the crafts service table. It's a great collaboration, even though it's a director's medium. I think that sense of support was instilled in us with John, 'cause he gave us these roles and we all knew what we were doing, but he always was collaborative that way. I think that was his intelligence, too, that he allowed his scripts to transcend even the beauty that they had, because he hired people that he believed in. But there's a great collaboration, always. When you're talking about rehearsal, you're talking about the five of you guys. Were Paul and Kapelos kept away a little bit, to let you guys have your thing, a little "us vs. them" a little bit for that? Well, that was happening right away. Also, 'cause Paul wanted to hang with us, so that was perfect, 'cause it gave us the power to say, "No." So, we could. But you guys rehearsed those scenes, right, with you and Paul? But he wouldn't necessarily be sitting there on a day when... Just the five of us. - ...it was the five of us in that rehearsal, if we were gonna get to that stuff. We wouldn't do necessarily whole read-through of it. We would be taking it from the first scene and rehearsing it till it made some sense to us, and John knew, basically, how he wanted to see it and how he wanted to shoot it. It's a business, at the end of the day, like anything else, so there's always such a sense of the clock and rushing, so, as Judd said, a high water mark in our careers to start with this great project, and we had these great roles and a well-developed script. But he was smart enough to sit us all down and get our input and let us work through it. So, once we got on our feet with this and we were shooting the scenes, we had a closeness and a vibe already flowing between us. But it's funny you said that, 'cause I thought the same, too. I thought it would be like this after, and usually the director is the most stressed-out, doesn't know what the next shot is. It's like the world changed after this. But part of it was the good fortune we had to be in Chicago and do this. It was at the beginning of his career, after Sixteen Candles did pretty well, even though it was a small film. I think I remember him telling us that his intent was to do this first. I think the studio was gonna make this film first and they flipped them. So, we were fortunate to be away from everything and... Flipped it and Sixteen Candles, you mean? Yeah, exactly, in terms of the making of the films. So then we did this project second, and then we were, again, just in Chicago, and that sort of remote quality helps it, too. It's a lot of the fun of it. 'Cause then you came back here to do Weird Science, right? Yeah, that was fun. There is something about that, pulling it out of Hollywood. That's clichéd, "Hollywood's bad and you can't get anything done." But there is something to be said about that. Well, the story takes place there, and that's where he lives. Why not put it there? It's easier, it makes the most sense, and for the actors, it's one less thing you have to imagine, and hope everyone else is imagining the same thing. In fact, it is the same room where we're gonna go every day. It's a school. - Right. I remember, I went to some local schools, too, in that area at the time. It was fun just to get a sense of what... 'Cause I hadn't had that kind of upbringing. I grew up in New York City at a liberal arts high school. It was a different experience. It was a boys' reformatory, wasn't it? I was away a lot and... Very religious, wasn't it? - That's part of the fun, actually, just to get out of the mix, to be somewhere else. As an actor, the gift is getting the job, and then the sense of exploration is enhanced, I think, by being somewhere on location. It's fun. Makes it part of joining the circus, I guess. So, what, you guys went to an actual school, went in, mixed with the kids, did that whole... Yeah. Yeah. - I did some of that, yeah. Yeah, Hughes arranged it for us to go. I know that Ally, Emilio and I went to this high school, and the principal knew, but most of the teachers didn't, and it worked out perfectly. It was a school that had two halls, one called Jock Hall and one called Freak Hall. And I was like, "Are you kidding me? That's perfect." I just waved to Emilio, "See you at the end of the day," and then went over to the other side. It's great 'cause I was over 18, so I met some guys and I could buy them beer. I was like, "Yeah, I got an ID that'll work. Come on, let's go get some beer." Just treating it so poorly, it was perfect. You didn't get put in detention at that school, did you? No, but I did get sent to the principal's office, the one guy who knew that it was okay for me to be there, so it was perfect. I hadn't found my classroom yet, out of Freak Hall, and I didn't have a classroom, so I was always going to be found out there. Bender, that's school property there, and it doesn't belong to us. It's something not to be toyed with. That's very funny. Fix it. You should really fix that. - Am I a genius? No, you're an asshole. - What a funny guy. Fix the door, Bender. Everyone, just... I've been here before. I know what I'm doing. No. Fix the door! - Shut up! God damn it!

8:42 · jump to transcript →

So I wasn't until the movie became this great hit. And then Emile swore that he went into theater after theater shouting, who is that woman? Let's see more of her. And when we were in Deauville, I was sitting between Patrick and Emile at the Deauville Film Festival. He had not seen the final cut. And when this part came up, he said in this loud voice, Eleanor, what happened to our turn? What happened to our dip down to the floor? So small as it is, we do feel that it is probably one of the reasons the movie has been a hit.

26:13 · jump to transcript →

It's a little more straightforward. But it happens here where you always try to find ways to track the blob without seeing the blob. Like how you use the grass in the previous scene. Yeah, similar. And so there is a chair gag you're about to see, I think, coming up. But it was only okay. The chairs just moved around a little. They weren't quite what I had in mind. But at that point, TriStar was already making trailers, so it's not like they were worried about anything that made the final cut? There was not a lot of...

39:15 · jump to transcript →

Will I Be A

So these in this extended cut, I do think you get a better sense of who these characters are. I think one of the problems with the film is that, by the time the third act is coming around, you see a lot of bald-headed guys getting killed. But they're fun characters. They each did have an identity. And particularly, I think, Golic. The little crazy guy got some of his stuff excised a little bit much. The little crazy guy got some of his stuff excised a little bit much. When he releases the creature, you see that he's nuts. And his experience in meeting the creature, he has sort of interpreted it a little differently than someone who's not quite as bent might, and so therefore he feels it's his duty to release the creature. Sort of like a Renfield and Dracula kind of relationship, which I thought was interesting. And it added a little bit of clarity to this whole scene here. This is, again... Look how beautifully this stuff is shot. Fincher was very much into these browns and sepias. Well, the alien in Alien 3 was still more of the blackish... The black, black alien. But because of the lighting and the color timing and so on, he does pick up this sort of overall sepia tone of the color scheme of the film. Whereas in the second film, even though there were browns in the body of the alien, there was a lot of blue light that was being used, and that reflects off the glistening slime. So they feel more blue-black. And this one feels a little more sepia. And actually, in Giger's work, if you look through Necronomicon, you really do see two different tones. You can see the blue-black and the brown-black. And so we opted more towards the brown-black. And, again, every one of these films... What's great about the Alien series is that every one of the films has the stamp of each director on it. No matter how you interpret that, or whether you like that or not, each movie is stylistically its own film. All owing to the original, but still maintaining some of its own quality.

1:28:41 · jump to transcript →

Marco Brambilla Daniel Waters

I like that he sticks to the script and Wesley's going crazy, but you're still getting the information. And it kind of works, and it kind of works in the final cut. It works because in a way he's obviously not used to dealing with anyone like this. This is a little bit of over art direction on my part. No, you need it.

1:07:46 · jump to transcript →

Fred Dekker

Wow. Oh, and then she designed it, too. No, it's the prototype for Robo's flight pack. The funding ran out before we got a chance to test it. How do you know so much about it? Oh, I designed it. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Well, it looks like the odds on the home team. Yeah, just cut that out. Let's just cut that. Let's do the director's cut, like, verbally. Okay, cut that part out. Here, I'll make notes so that we can go back and... But I mean...

1:03:00 · jump to transcript →

My Question Initially To Jean-pierre Was

It was a bit longer, this scene. - We had an additional hole. Exactly, an additional hole. You can see something strange on the hole, because... You can see something strange, because he's grabbed by the feet by the alien through a hole which doesn't exist here. He had to walk for an additional 10m or something to get there. It was too long. That was one of the remarks we had from the first test screening. They made, if I remember, something like 100 remarks. I remember, sometimes we were defiant, but we were pretty upset. And sometimes we said "They're right." And sometimes we said "They're right." We were very upset at first, but looking at the questions which were asked, we realized that, each time, it was somewhere where... we thought it could go like that. In the time we had for doing it, we thought it was OK. As we could have more time, that was... Most of the notes, we found an answer. We never really followed the propositions we had, but we found the creative answer to the question asked. I think that was what the studio was waiting for us to do. But it was a good lesson for me and for us. Since that time, for each film I'm cutting I'm organizing previews, which is not in the French tradition. For Amélie we did some test screenings. In fact, I copy the answer from Hollywood, but the big difference is: I have the final cut, I can choose. The difference is on the use you do from the answers. Exactly. But we don't have to complain. - I love this idea. This is a simple shot that was hard. That head was long and heavy, and trying to keep it smooth and even and not drag across Michael's face, and make it all the way up to that opening in the chest. You always said that this cut, the final cut, was your cut. We did it with the production notes and... If the studio would ask me to make a director's cut, I would say "That's mine." Yeah, that would be a problem, because we're very happy with what we have.

48:31 · jump to transcript →

Taylor Hackford

And Mary Ann, who's innocent, just like she was in the beginning... ...she's right alongside. What I wanted to do at the end of this film, and that's why at this point... ...you see Neal Jones morph into Al Pacino... ...you realize you can't beat the devil every time. You might win one battle, but he's back there the next morning. I would not leave this film with you having a happy ending. I did that with Officer and a Gentleman. I want to basically say: Every single day of your life you can't get smug... ...and you have to confront morality. I think we all do. And that's why this is a moral tale. I'm not deeply religious and I don't think of this as a religious film... ...but I do think that it is a film of somebody who still feels... ...a certain idealism, and a realization that we have responsibilities in our life. And I think that all the people that worked on the film worked on it... ...in a fairly righteous way. You know, Andrew Neiderman wrote a novel at the beginning. Four writers contributed to the screenplay. And I want to mention the people I haven't mentioned. There's Mark Warner... ...who is my collaborator, my editor, fabulous collaborator through... ...this process. You can feel the pace of this film. Everybody put themselves into something here. I also want to give credit to Per Hallberg, who was the sound designer. All the way through this I think there are subtle effects in addition to the score... ...that really give you the feeling that there is something else going on. There are a lot of artists that worked on this film, and when you go through... ...the process of collaboration, you have a vision as a film maker... ...and you want to get that vision on the screen. But you can't do it alone. I know it's trite to say this, but you utilize... ...and when someone has a great idea, you grab it. I encourage that, and I worked with a wonderful group of collaborators... ...on this film, and I'm very proud of it. After having gone and talked for two hours here, almost nonstop... ...this must be a lot of dribble. I apologize if, in fact, it's gone on... ...ad nauseam, but, again, we had an opportunity to make a film. I appreciate Warner Bros. was very tough to work for. We had a lot of disagreements, but they did allow me to make a film... ...and, they did, ultimately, give me final cut of the film... ...so that I was able to make the film I wanted. No excuses. I'm very proud of it. I hope you enjoyed it. Subtitles conformed by SOFTITLER

2:17:38 · jump to transcript →

Richard Curtis

Yushio Mahoto. Look. There used to be so many more of these photos, but we cut two of the scenes with all the photos in them. They were so brilliant, some of them, these sort of slightly obscene Christmas puns. That was meant to be the Four Tops. - That was the Four Tops. Can I patch you through? She wants to ask you a favor. That's brilliant. Thanks and be nice. I'm always nice. - You know what I mean, Marky, be friendly. I'm always... - Mark? This plot with Andrew and Keira and Chiwe is in some ways the kind of model for what the film was meant to be. I always said that I wanted it to have, you know, 10 good beginnings, 10 good middles and 10 good ends. And in fact, they've really only got three scenes. They've got the wedding, which is the beginning, and then they've got the scene where she goes around to his house and looks at the video, which is the middle, and they've got the scene with the cards, which is the end, and that was sort of the idea, that you'd fillet out all the unnecessary Stuff in films. And this is the one remaining little extra scenelet. I think it could go. Hugh, you appear to have misunderstood what we're doing here, Hugh, you appear to have misunderstood what we're doing here, which is that the film's finished and that's why we're commenting on it. Well, you say that. It's not out yet. Do you think this will be one example where the director's cut is actually shorter? We should have Hugh's cut. I always think that the director's cut in films actually should be called the director's half-cut, which is one day when he's drunk, he says, "That was a very good scene. "I wish to see that back in again." Now, this next shot was suggested by Mickey Coulter. He said that I'd wasted what was actually on offer. ...doing dark deeds. And I think he was right. - What do you mean? That high shot. - I think we know what you mean. I'd only done a little shot of Heike's face. - Can we see that again? And he said that's... - He wanted to lower the camera. Move the gib around. He wanted it up above the head. I was just going to have it all just done on a reaction shot. Here we go. - Beautiful. I so love this tune. I like the performance as well, although I think Colin's cardie is controversial. It's his own, isn't it?

35:29 · jump to transcript →

John Cameron Mitchell

Again, that was stuff that you told us to scream at each other. We thought that it was going to be before the beginning of the scene. This is trying to get us into the mood, and then you used it in the final cut. You never know. You sneaky little thing. You know, Brian Cates, master editor, he used every ounce of common sweat in the editing of this film. So the screams that we used to give you guys energy...

42:33 · jump to transcript →

Probably the best visuals in the movie are now. Yeah. The final trip through London... from the air. Because, you know, the special effects crew removed every sign of life. And, you know, it's amazing how special effects now, this is kind of an apocalyptic vision with this place burned. This is one of the big shots in the movie. Originally, it was the end of the movie. But two days before the date of the final cut, Juan Carlos and I, we decide to... to turn this into something else. And we took the Eurostar with Bernie Bellew, producer of the film. And... with minimum crew and the TV camera, we decide to add a cue, no? A coda. The famous coda that we are about to see now. It was shot with Enrique, Bernie and I, and 12 extras. At 5am in Paris. And we shot with a small camera, an HD camera, to... to deliver, you know, this kind of new step in the story. And it was very funny, because we... we shot the movie, we shot that moment as a kind of point of view of the infected, so we ran behind infected and we discover the big image, one of the big images in the story, which is the final image, which means the infection... is out of control and takes over another... another city... which its Paris.

1:31:20 · jump to transcript →

James Mangold

One of the wonderful qualities for making this film for me was that I had final cut on this film and that it was a unique experience and that it was Completely independent of any studio. We made it including the studio that distributes at Lionsgate They came on right before we started shooting the film but this film was put together with completely independent financing separate from any studio at all and

56:00 · jump to transcript →

And I then cut before we wipe through this pillow and we're going to, there's a scene between Kick-Ass and his dad and his dad gives him the taser. But it was just, again, it was style over content. We didn't need it. When we do the director's cut, or it won't be the director's cut, this is the director's cut, when we do the extended try and make more money cut, I'll put those scenes in.

34:02 · jump to transcript →

Scott Stewart Jason Blum Brian Kavanaugh-Jones Peter Gvozdas

you know, autonomy, you know, you get to do whatever you want, and collaboration, and a studio that, you know, rules by fiat, and these kinds of things, you know, and Jason, you had told me early on, you said, you know, it's very, I let people have Final Cut, but it's rare that, you know, a note that I argued passionately for wasn't accepted by the director because

1:13:20 · jump to transcript →

That's a digital tongue, too, by the way. Yeah, the tongue's digital in that shot, because it couldn't get it to move. I just want to say that I'm very proud of this in-credit sequence. We had no time to do an in-credit sequence, because we wanted to work with the best set again, and we wanted them to write a song. I was actually editing all this stuff together while we were on the sound stage, remember? Yeah. The mix stage. And all these credits are actually just final cut credits, and then we would record them

1:30:16 · jump to transcript →

Pensive. Quite a nice moment to have her there, sort of reflecting on the journey. Another key challenge of the film was just trying to get all of Amy's tracks in. You know, there's a lot of songs that people love which didn't make the final cut. And Valerie, we finish with Valerie, which is in many ways one of my more famous songs, which she obviously didn't write. It was a cover that she did with Mark Ronson, a Zuton song.

1:59:28 · jump to transcript →