8 Movies That Were Changed AFTER They Were Released

5. Director Sam Peckinpah Lost Control Of The Final Edit (Major Dundee)

Major Dundee Charlton Heston
Columbia Pictures

Not to be conflated with Crocodile Dundee, Major Dundee is set during the American Civil War, and stars the late Charlton Heston as an officer who leads a group of soldiers on a mission to take down a gang of troublesome Apache raiders.

Even with some sublime production design and great performances, the film was received poorly by critics and audiences in 1965, despite going through a series of complicated edits and changes which were, obviously, intended to make it better. And many of these changes occurred after the film had premiered.

Director Sam Peckinpah's original cut reportedly clocked in at over four hours, which was edited down to just under three hours by removing some battle scenes and violence. By the time it was ready to release, the film was 136 minutes long, but unfortunately for everyone involved, this version wasn't received too well.

So, additional post-release edits were required. Against Peckinpah's wishes, 13 extra minutes were chopped - leading to a 123 minute theatrical cut - a decision which had the opposite intended effect, since many believe that it ruined the film further.

Finally - in 2005 - the film was re-released with 12 minutes of added footage. This is why it has a 97% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, despite its muted response back in 1965; most of those reviews are from the mid-2000s, when appreciation for the film had grown significantly.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!