10 Times Studios LOCKED AWAY Deleted Movie Scenes From Directors
These deleted scenes will (probably) never see the light of day.
The creative push-and-pull of getting a movie made can bring out the best in visionary filmmakers, but it's also fair to say that it often simply results in a stubborn studio thinking they know what's best.
There are countless stories throughout the years of movies being ripped away from directors and shaped into something fundamentally different by bean-counting executives, and that's certainly true in the case of these 10 films.
Though several of these movies are still quite excellent, each nevertheless suffered from the studio forcefully cutting scenes out, locking them away in a vault and, more often than not, never allowing them to see the light of day.
The sad reality nowadays is that most of this deleted content has either been lost to time or, in the case of more modern movies, the films in question just didn't make enough money to justify the studio ever allowing a Director's Cut to be constructed.
Simply, if you're counting on a comprehensive, full-fat cut of any of these movies ever being released, you're setting yourself up for a lifetime of disappointment. Still, keep #ReleaseTheSnyderCut going, right?
10. Event Horizon
Say what you will about director Paul W.S. Anderson, but his cult classic Event Horizon is a deeply atmospheric and unsettling slice of gonzo sci-fi horror - and easily his best film.
While Anderson is generally accepted to be a journeyman director who plays ball with the studio, on this movie he fought tooth and nail against Paramount, who ended up cutting the film down from 130 minutes to just 95.
The studio primarily objected to the original cut's extreme gore, which featured a prolonged "blood orgy" sequence as is only hinted at in the theatrical release, and made other cuts to expository and character development scenes intended to streamline the narrative.
Though Event Horizon performed well enough on home video for Paramount to consider a Director's Cut, they ultimately discovered that they'd improperly stored the original negatives in a Transylvanian salt mine, making it impossible to reconstitute the 35 minutes' worth of cut scenes.
While Anderson did confirm that producer Lloyd Levin found a VHS copy of the Director's Cut in 2012, it's obviously of insufficient quality to be mastered for a home video release, and so short of a bootleg copy ever find its way online, fans are basically out of luck.