Jason Momoa wants “the four-to-six hour version” of Dune
Jason Momoa is all of us. Speaking to The New York Times about his upcoming movie Dune, he thinks the best way to represent Denis Villeneuve’s vision properly is to release the whole uncut version of the film.
“It was a cool movie,” Momoa said. “You know what they need to do? They need to make the four-to-six hour version of the first half. It’s like, ‘Let’s watch the four-to-five hour movie like a TV show; I can choose when I want to watch the whole thing.’ I want to see Denis’s whole vision. I don’t want it to be trimmed.”
This version of Dune adapts the first half of Frank Herbert’s 1965 classic science fiction novel, with a second part intended to come later. But in Momoa’s mind, the first half should be as long as it needs to be.
Jason Momoa (Duncan Idaho) wants the full cut of Dune
Speaking from his own experience with extended cuts, Momoa is spot on about how movies can benefit from being released in their full uncut glory. Take Zack Snyder’s Justice League. The difference between the theatrical version and the Snyder Cut is so dramatic it’s like night and day.
If the scenes are filmed as part of the original script, why not include them in a full cut? Why try to pare it down when there is so much excitement and anticipation for the movie?
According to editor Joe Walker, who worked with Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049, the original cut of that movie was four hours, and there was a plan to divide it into two movies, but it was eventually condensed into one theatrical cut.
Nowadays, streaming services are providing a pipeline for longer director’s cuts that didn’t exist before. After seeing how some movies are edited to death to fit a theatrical release time frame, you can bet that there will be more and more extended versions of films coming out than ever before.
Dune will premiere in September at the Venice Film Festival ahead of its October 22 release in theaters and HBO Max.
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h/t IndieWire