Two weeks ago, it was reported Korean director Bong Joon-ho wasn’t upset with Harvey Weinstein over the distributor’s order to cut 20 minutes from his new film Snowpiercer as a condition of American release, but now the director’s taking a different tack. It’s not like the 126-minute Snowpiercer is monstrously bloated considering seemingly every summer blockbuster this year clocked in around 150 minutes, but the notoriously cut-happy Weinstein Company wants the film shortened for maximum comprehension across the country. Bong was quoted as saying that “Weinstein is actually being pretty soft toward editing, probably because it’s noticed how critics have praised the film and know how angry movie fans get over new edits. They even asked me which parts I want to include in the film.”
Last week at a press conference the Deauville Film Festival, the director said it was flatly untrue he’d recut the film, saying he was “still negotiating about everything” with The Weinstein Company. “In Korea, Japan, France, and many other European countries have all bought my director’s cut,” he observed. “And for North America we are still negotiating.” In a recent interview with Screen Daily, Bong made more unhappy statements about the prospect of whittling down the film, most of which was financed by Korean entertainment company CJ E&M. “I escaped CJ intervention but TWC has final cut on the U.S. version,” he said. “It’s my first time working like this. You have to be flexible and do a lot of convincing.”
“There’s no question that all English speaking audiences deserve to see director Bong’s cut, and we hope very much that we will all see it,” star Tilda Swinton chimed in at the conference. She didn’t leave it at that, going on to muse on how intense the film was, acting as a claustrophobic form of “aversion therapy” that leaves viewers with “relief that we can make life wider.” But, she added, “that’s two hours, not one hour and forty minutes.”
In other Snowpiercer news, there’s a new poster for its French release, which happens (in uncut form) on October 30. No American release is currently set, presumably pending an end to the recutting saga. Here’s that poster (via CloneWeb):
