You may remember a couple of weeks ago Screen Rant reported on news that the Weinstein Company wanted Quentin Tarantino to cut a whopping 40 minutes from his upcoming WWII flick, Inglourious Basterds. The news, which came from The Wrap, said that the 2 hour 40 minute length that Basterds was originally supposed to be was being considered, “too long, especially for American audiences.”
Well, in an interview with GQ, Harvey Weinstein has said that the news of cutting 40 minutes out of Inglourious Basterds is, “untrue. There’s no fu**ing way. Here, read my lips: That is nuts.”
“Those stories are all untrue. There’s no fu**ing way. Here, read my lips: That is nuts. Please don’t even write that, it’s insanity. There’s not even a question of that. Whatever you’re reading, it’s like some insane blogger… There’s no truth to any of this. He’s not gonna cut. What he’s doing is just reorganizing some scenes. I mean, the guy had six weeks to cut his movie [for Cannes]; most guys take six months. Most guys take a year.
When I worked with Martin [Scorsese], we’d do eighteen months in post-production. Quentin Tarantino cuts a movie in six weeks? Come on, there’s sh** on that cutting-room floor that’ll blow your brains out. I was telling Quentin the opposite-”You should put that sh** back in the movie.” There’s scenes with Brad Pitt and the Basterds, and I’m praying he puts that sh** back in, ‘cause it’s un-fu**ing-believably great. Listen-this movie will be between two hours and twenty minutes and two hours and twenty-seven minutes. I don’t think it’s going to be shorter-it’s just a question of rearranging. I know he’s putting footage back into the movie. I know he’s got some cool sh** that he didn’t get time to address.”
Wow, Harvey certainly doesn’t hold back anything – if you notice, he even uses some swear words…
Although I don’t necessarily like the way he’s gone about reacting to the runtime cutting reports (“insane bloggers,” Harvey?) , I am very glad to hear that the rumor (according to Harvey) is untrue. As I said in my post when the runtime news first came out, I don’t see why anything should be cut – the line given in The Wrap’s post about it being, “too long, especially for American audiences,” was utter rubbish. Even if The Wrap report may not have sounded like 100% the truth, the fact that the Weinstein’s are currently in some financial deep waters gave it a lot of believability.
Even though I agree Inglourious Basterds would do a bit better with audiences if it were shorter, I still think no matter the length, Basterds will find it’s audience – whether in its theatrical run or later on DVD/Blu-ray. I think most people will be interested in what Tarantino has to offer, with only a portion worrying about the runtime.
I say if Basterds is good then it doesn’t really matter how long they go on for.
Are you glad that Tarantino is (allegedly) not cutting a huge chunk out of Inglourious Basterds’ runtime? Do you care that the intended cut is a bit lengthy?
Inglourious Basterds is set to hit theaters on August 21, 2009.
Sources: GQ, FirstShowing and The Wrap
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