A Four-Hour Cut of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood Might be Coming to Netflix
Once Upon A Time In... Hollywood isn't yet released in UK cinemas, and already there's been talk of a four hour cut of the film making its way to Netflix.
Director Quentin Tarantino has a history of releasing longer cuts of his work and tinkering with his back catalogue. Back in May he revealed that he has made a 200 minute director's cut of his 2012 film Django Unchained, a month after his 2015 film The Hateful Eight hit Netflix as a four part mini-series. He also went back over Death Proof and expanded it from half of the double-feature Grindhouse.
Now there's talk of his DiCaprio, Pitt and Robbie-fronted ode to the end of the Golden Age of Hollywood being released on the streaming platform as a four hour cut.
Speaking on The Mutuals Interview, Nicholas Hammond, who plays Sam Wannamaker in Once Upon a Time in... Hollywood, said, “There is talk about there being a 4-hour Netflix version, as well, because there were a lot of scenes he shot that couldn’t make it into the film because there just simply wasn’t room”.
The ninth Tarantino film already has a lengthy run time at 2hrs 45 minutes, so it would be interesting to see what avenues he felt were still unexplored. It might be that we get to see more of characters who weren't given much screen-time, as was the case for Tim Roth's Oswaldo Mobray in the Netflix-released longer cut of The Hateful Eight.
Tarantino has been sceptical of Netflix in the past, saying when interviewed in 2015 book, I Lost It At The Video Store, that he is "not excited about streaming at all".
He continued: "I like something hard and tangible in my hand. And I can’t watch a movie on a laptop. I don’t use Netflix at all. I don’t have any sort of delivery system. I have the videos from Video Archives. They went out of business, and I bought their inventory. Probably close to eight thousand tapes and DVDs. I have a bunch of DVDs and a bunch of videos, and I still tape movies off of television on video so I can keep my collection going".
With more directorial and acting talent moving to streaming platforms, Tarantino may be aware that it's a golden chance to get his longer cuts seen by wider audiences. Though whether we'll see him lured by a Netflix produced series seems less likely with his well-documented love of traditional cinema.
Still, there's plenty of potential spins on his work that may make their way to Netflix, including a longer mash-up of Kill Bill and Kill Bill 2, as well as potentially Kill Bill 3. Plus, he's got the premise for a Pulp Fiction prequel nailed.
In short, even if he does come good on his promise to only make ten films, it looks like he'll be remaking and editing those films until the end of time.
This story originally appeared on Esquire.co.uk. Minor edits have been made by the Esquiremag.ph editors.
