10 Times Studios LOCKED AWAY Deleted Movie Scenes From Directors
7. Metropolis
Fritz Lang's 1927 sci-fi masterpiece Metropolis is one of the most iconic and distinctive films of all time, but Lang's film was originally so, so much more than what most audiences have seen.
The first cut of Metropolis was 153 minutes long, before studio Parufamet commissioned a comprehensive re-assembly of the film, removing entire plots, re-organising scenes, and altering inter-titles to change the context of the story.
Lang was furious enough that he never dared to watch this 116 minute version, and in the years that followed various iterations were created with lengths ranging from 91 minutes to 128 - but all a far cry from Lang's original vision.
Sadly Lang died in 1976, decades before Metropolis would be restored to almost its full glory. In 2008, a near-complete version of Lang's original film was found in an Argentinian archive, featuring roughly 25 minutes of footage which hadn't been seen in over 80 years.
Due to the rough condition of the print, two scenes from Lang's original had to be cut, while the new footage was stitched together with that from the 2001 restoration to create the most complete version of the film ever seen by the public.
Yet to think, all this fuss could've been avoided if the studio just let an artist put his vision out into the world in the first place. That Lang never got to see his work fully vindicated, though, is what really stings.