Hey guys! Horrorella here...
It looks like things are still churning behind the scenes of Bong Joon-Ho's SNOWPIERCER. Back in August, we learned that Harvey Weinstein and TWC wanted Bong to cut about 20 minutes out of his post-apocolyptic film in an effort to make it more palatable and accessable for American audiences.
Over the past few months, we have seen several trailers, posters and an animated short serving as a prequel to the film. It has opened in South Korea and has been very well-received, and yet the American cut still seems to have some sticking points.
Bong and TWC have been working to reach a compromise and a version that both parties can be happy with. In an interview with Twitch, Bong discusses the process and the negotiations:
It's still going on. Some aspects are a little bit exaggerated. Some people misunderstood that there already exists a North American version with 20 minutes cut out. But that kind of version doesn't exist. Officially the negotiation is still going on, and I'm trying my best to keep my own version and also the CJ people (the Korean investors/distributors) are trying to confirm the release date, the marketing plan and many other things they are still negotiating and the funny thing is once there did exist a 20-minute cut-out version, a Weinstein version of Snowpiercer, they had a screening of that version in New Jersey in July. Then CJ did another test screening of my original version in LA with a normal American audience, and with my version the response was much higher than the scores from the Weinstein version.It's a little confusing, but it sounds like a cut version did/does exist, but it's not a complete or final version of the film, ready to go and land in theaters. He is still working with TWC to arrive at the final cut.
When asked what TWC's main concern is and why the slimmed-down version seem to be so important, Bong responded,
They want a more speedy tempo...They think of Snowpiercer as an R-rated movie, so the violence and those kinds of matters are not a big issue. But it's all a matter of duration, speed and tempo.
It's promising to hear that audiences responded more favorably to Bong's preferred version of the film than they did to the cut version. Personally, his vision of the story is the one that I am more interested in seeing. It has been well-received so far, so it seems kind of ridiculous to assume that American audiences would require 20 minutes to be chopped off in order to enjoy it, when the rest of the world seems to be just fine with the original cut.
Bong also notes that this is the first time that he has encountered this level of push-back on the final cut of the film, and hopes that all parties "can reach a good conclusion."
No U.S. release date has been set, and that is certainly at least partly due to the issues in the editing room. Hopefully, Bong and TWC will reach that good conclusion soon, and give American fans a chance to see the film.
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