Movies
Ridley Scott Cut Approximately 20 Minutes of Footage From ‘Alien: Covenant’
Nearly all movies are tested in front of an audience before released to the public. There are many reasons behind this, and typically it’s a power play for studio heads to trick data into forcing filmmakers into change. Simply by steering the questions to receive the response wanted, one could ascertain that a film needs to have its opening or closing worked on, or that certain scenes aren’t working. This is a conversation for another day, though, as we’re focusing on Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, which was trimmed by approximately 20 minutes after a test screening.
“I always come out at almost 2:23 first cut,” Scott told Collider. “Look at it, and go ‘I’ve got to get to two hours.'”
Scott gets into the reasoning behind the snips, which I strongly disagree with:
The only reason I take my hat off occasionally to screenings is you think you know everything, but you know you don’t. Something inordinately simple you’ve assumed everyone understands and they don’t. That’s the key thing, isn’t it? You know when it’s a bit too long. And also, if you’re a bit too long you then ask “Right speed? Too slow? Too fast?” If they go “no, too fast” you go “shit, I’ve got to slow down” – because as you edit, you can get weary and want to cut, cut, cut.
Scott’s listening to fans way too much, and it’s resulted in a confused Prometheus sequel that appears to be losing its audience in the box office. As an artist, Scott should have been going with his gut, and do what he’s passionate about. If he were to listen to critics he should have been doing so with a grain of salt. This reminds me of what happened with Rob Zombie’s Halloween; Zombie was trying to do his own thing while also appeasing the fans of the franchise, which resulted in an unwatchable franken-movie.
But I digress, with about 20 minutes of cut footage it would be nice to see some of this on the home video release, although we don’t know if there are entire scenes edited out or just some banter between characters in the middle of a sequence. The Prometheus release was loaded with goodies, so I’m hoping we see a lot of new footage, not to mention Luke Scott’s short films edited into the film (no way that happens, but it would be cool).
Watch for updated box office numbers as they arrive, as well as home video details.
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
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