Alternate cuts

Len Wiseman

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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Len Wiseman

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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Len Wiseman

I've never heard of a director, when I listen to these and, you know, since, God, since high school and going through and I'd watch all the Aliens or Blade Runner or going through and looking at different commentaries that it's very rare that the director's cut is a shorter cut. And I think that's just the nature of it. You spend so much time with a story and being able to expand on certain ideas and, you know, and oftentimes that hits like a,

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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?

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Matthew Vaughn

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.

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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

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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

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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 Zutons song.

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