Director's Cut of 'Snowpiercer' to Hit U.S. but in Limited Release

Well, there's good news and bad news in regards to Bong Joon-Ho's sci-fi epic, Snowpiercer. For months there's been a ton of anger from fans, a little from the director himself, that Harvey Weinstein was planning to do what he's known for and slice the film by as much as 20 minutes and make other changes nobody else wants. But now it looks like Joon-Ho and Weinstein have come to an agreement that will probably leave fans with mixed emotions.

Snowpiercer will arrive on U.S. shores unedited, just as Joon-Ho intended, but it will only be in limited release. That means if you really want to see the film in full it may require a bit of a hike, but at least you'll get the full cut that is apparently just over 2 1/2 hours. It's that lengthy run time which caused Weinstein to scuttle plans for a national rollout. The film has been playing internationally where it has broken box office records and won a handful of awards (it's at Berlin now), but apparently we're too dumb in America to understand it.

And that's been Weinstein's prevailing attitude for awhile, that American audiences won't respond to a foreign film with any level of intelligence or nuance. That apparently applies to Snowpiercer even though it boasts a cast including Chris Evans (Captain America), Tilda Swinton (Oscar winner), Octavia Spencer (Oscar winner), John Hurt, Alison Pill, and Jamie Bell. So it's not as if it doesn't have the star wattage to attract a decent box office if given the proper push.