‘Blade Runner 2049’ Director Says Film’s Four-Hour Cut ‘Doesn’t Work’

'Blade Runner 2049' director Denis Villeneuve discusses the film's four hour long cut and why he feels the theatrical version is the best cut of the film.

While Blade Runner 2049 didn’t exactly reap in the high box office takings that many feel that it deserved nonetheless the film was a hit with critics and fans of the original film alike. While it is subjective, some of the criticism has been directed towards the length of the film as it clocks in at nearly three hours with many scenes originally shot ultimately finding their way on the cutting room floor.

Although Ridley Scott’s original 1982 classic harbored several different cuts that found their way to home video, Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve doesn’t seem concerned with the additional footage that didn’t make it into the theatrical cut of the film as he considers the version released in theaters to be the best rendering of the film.

While speaking to ScreenCrush the director provided a short and simple answer in regards to whether or not the four-hour cut of Blade Runner 2049 would ever see an eventual release sometime down the road which may bode as bad news for those longing to see what didn’t make it to the original film:

“I will not show it to anyone, the four hours, it doesn’t work. The movie you see right now is the one.”

However, Villeneuve does explain that the footage that he shot wasn’t all too supplemental to the final version of the film and could have been seen as detrimental to movie’s overall pacing. Simply put, the director advises that the additional scenes didn’t work in the long run, even if its a shot that he ended up loving:

“I will say that there’s no great things that are being lost. When I cut something, it’s dead. It means it was not good enough. Even if sometimes I’m cutting my favorite shots, I still strongly think that when it’s cut on the floor of the editing room it should not go back to see the light of day again. I don’t like extended cuts.”

Would you be interested in seeing a four-hour version of the film? Let us know how you feel in the comments below!

Directed by Denis Villeneuve, Blade Runner 2049 stars Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Barkhad Abdi, Dave Bautista and Jared Leto.

Thirty years after the events of the first film, a new Blade Runner, LAPD officer K (Ryan Gosling), unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. K’s discovery leads him on quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former LAPD Blade Runner who has been missing for thirty years.

Blade Runner 2049 is now available on digital home media and will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on January 16, 2018.

Source: ScreenCrush