The massive science fiction epic “Dune: Part Two” directed by Denis Villeneuve has been likened to both “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Lord of the Rings.” Even though Villeneuve only used a small portion of the footage for the three-hour movie, don’t anticipate to see any longer cuts or omitted sequences. Villeneuve clarified that he doesn’t think that extra footage should be released after a movie is finished in a recent interview with Collider. He claimed that everything that doesn’t benefit the movie is cut out through a meticulous editing procedure and that re-cutting such material would be psychologically and artistically laborious.
“I’m a strong believer that when it’s not in the movie, it’s dead. I kill darlings, and it’s painful for me,” Villeneuve stated. “Sometimes I remove shots and I say, ‘I cannot believe I’m cutting this out.’ I feel like a samurai opening my gut. It’s painful, so I cannot go back after that and create a Frankenstein and try to reanimate things that I killed. It’s too painful. When it’s dead, it’s dead, and it’s dead for a reason. But yes, it is a painful project, but it is my job. The movie prevails. I’m very, I think, severe in the editing room. I’m not thinking about my ego, I’m thinking about the movie.”
Villeneuve is by no means the only filmmaker who declines to make erased sequences public. Although some directors, such as Ridley Scott, enjoy publishing extended cuts, Todd Phillips and Christopher Nolan have expressed their disapproval of the idea. In 2012, Nolan stated to MTV, “I try to weed things out on paper because it’s crazy expensive to shoot things that aren’t going to be in the film. It also takes up a lot of time and energy. Pretty much with all my films, there are very few deleted scenes, which always disappoints the DVD crowd.”
