At three hours in length, The Wolf of Wall Street is already quite long. Not that it feels that way though. In fact, the film is an incredibly entertaining trip and not for one second does it drag. That said, Paramount Pictures wouldn’t release a cut of the film that was any longer than it already is and, as most of you know by now, director Martin Scorsese originally wanted it to run four hours. Of course, the studio wouldn’t accept that and so, unfortunately, the director was forced to make cuts.
However, back when the four hour cut was still floating around, there was an idea to release it in two separate two-hour installments, according to editor Thelma Schoonmaker. In a recent interview with HitFix, she spoke about the film and how the original plan was to go for a Kill Bill-style two-parter.
Check out what she had to say below:
HitFix: I can’t imagine anyone wanted to [release a four-hour movie].
Schoonmaker: But people loved the four-hour cut.
HitfFx: I guess maybe you could have done something like “Kill Bill.” Volume one and volume two.
Schoonmaker: Well, we thought about it. We did. But the film doesn’t work split in half. It has to have a certain arc. We did think about it, believe me, because people loved the four-hour version.
HitFix: I heard second-hand from people who had seen that version early on that they had no idea what you could cut.
Schoonmaker: That was a thing, too. People kept saying, “Oh, well, yeah it is too long but I couldn’t tell you what to cut.” So that kept happening over and over again, but fortunately, as I say — it would’ve been horrible if we had it cut out whole scenes. So, instead of cutting out scenes, which would have been really devastating, we just shaved things down and did three or four screenings and kept going and kept going and finally we got there. And I would never have believed we would have done it. So it was fortunate because it would’ve been disastrous if we hadn’t. I mean you can’t distribute a four-hour movie.
Personally, I’m hoping that we see the four hour cut when the film eventually hits Blu-Ray/DVD. I loved The Wolf of Wall Street. It was pretty much perfect and incredibly enjoyable. At no point did the three hours ever feel too long and I would happily sit through another hour of it. Hell, I’d sit through another two hours of it. When Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio make a movie, there is no such thing as “too long.”
The Wolf of Wall Street opens on Christmas Day. Be sure to let us know what you think of it in the comments section once you’ve had the chance to see it.