So, was 'Batman v Superman' too long for you? Or just long enough? Either way, there will be a chance to see a lot more of what Zack Snyder intended when the R-rated "ultimate cut" hits home release later this year, and there may be a 3-hour theatrical run of it at some point, too. But it turns out the film could have been even longer. A lot longer. Like Tarantino interlude" long.
'Batman v Superman editor David Brenner revealed to Pro Video Coalition that Snyder's original cut was over 4 hours. Guh. That's a lot of frowning Batman faces. Here's some of what Brenner had to say...
"In the script there were more story lines than you see in the movie today. That was probably our biggest editorial issue in trying to get the cut down to a reasonable length. For us, the trickiest section was the beginning of the film, until the point where Bruce Wayne tells Alfred the truth about what is on the “White Portugese” [sic] ship… the truth about his plan. This moment set into motion everything until the end of the film really. Until that point the movie was always tracking many solo paths, some intersecting, some not. Finally in this scene, the paths fork into one road."
"In the script there are more subplots than you see in the movie right now. Also in terms of building this beginning we had to move things around. In the script, Lex was introduced much later, but we found that in watching the movie — because he’s such an important player, it was best to set him up sooner. Plus, his presence has so much energy, a twisted comic energy that boosted the film. Generally, BvS was a unique challenge in that we had not one but two protagonists, each with an alter-ego. So there was Clark Kent, Superman, Bruce Wayne and Batman. And then surrounding them are Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Wallace Keefe (the guy who loses his legs when Wayne Tower falls), Perry White, Martha Kent, Holly Hunter’s character (Senator Finch), and still more characters orbiting them....It was a lot to juggle. So the plot lines of a couple characters had to go. These people are currently in the movie but we don’t track them, and it’s okay. What’s kind of fun is that we went back and did an extended cut where we put a lot of this stuff back, and we refined it into the same rhythm as the theatrical release. So what was once a nearly four hour cut with absolutely everything was ridiculous — ended up being about a three hour cut, once all these added storylines were refined and the fat cut out."
Interestingly, Brenner added this...
Zack knew that on 'Man of Steel' we addressed a lot of script questions in the film editing. So he was confident we could do it again."
Yeah, even those of us who enjoyed the film can see where certain characters' arcs had been slashed abruptly, leaving it a little disjointed. So far the approach Snyder has taken doesn't seem to have completely worked out, and maybe for Justice League it would make sense to try something more streamlined.
