10 Films With Multiple Different Cuts

10. Brazil

A showdown for the ages! In one corner, we have a power-hungry movie studio hellbent on adding a totally out-of-place happy ending for absolutely no reason at all and in the other corner, we have a director willing to fight tooth and nail for the right to cut the film his way, who will win!?

Such is the history of the battle for the final cut of 1985's Brazil that it's been parodied and referenced every time there's a battle for autonomy over a film's cut.

Brazil was released without complaint originally, however, the distributor eventually took issue with the somewhat bleak ending and insisted on re-editing it, something that the film's director Terry Gilliam vehemently opposed.

Gilliam was insistent that the film not be changed and resorted to a number of stunts, ranging from hiding in the editing room with the door locked so no one could take the film print away, all the way through to taking out a full-page advertisement in Variety to protest the changes!

Eventually, after the film's success at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, Universal relented and reluctantly released a modified 132-minute version supervised by Gilliam, in 1985.

Brazil remains a classic and one of Gilliam's greatest films, but the battle of final cut was a bloody one and one that probably meant he was off the studio's Christmas card list.