No matter how great this movie is, how critics have made it a jewel of sci-fi movies and called it one of the best sequels after The Dark Knight, Dennis Villeneuve’s ambitious project, Blade Runner 2049 hasn’t got the much required love from the audiences-the reason for its box-office debacle. Though, I don’t agree with the reason that the problem is the runtime of 163 minutes, because then, even Transformers: Age of Extinction shouldn’t have grossed a whopping $1.1 billion, back in 2014. And you know what Age of Extinction’s length was-a mere 165 minutes; more than Blade Runner 2049.
But everyone has declared that it’s a flop because it’s too long. Guess what, its not that long. Because had it been released with its real length, then it wouldn’t have even managed to gross what it has, till now-may be.
Do you know the actual runtime of Blade Runner 2049? What was it’s initial length?
Well, a hefty 4 hour cut was there, before the release that had to be cut down! Yes, that’s true. Recently, the editor of the film, Joe Walker, revealed in an interview that the assembly cut of the film was exactly 4 hour long.
“The first assembly of the film was nearly four hours and for convenience sake and – to be honest – my bladder’s sake, we broke it into two for viewings. That break revealed something about the story – it’s in two halves. There’s K discovering his true past as he sees it and at the halfway mark he kind of loses his virginity. (laughs) The next morning, it’s a different story, about meeting your maker and ultimately sacrifice – ‘dying is the most human thing we do’. Oddly enough both halves start with eyes opening. There’s the giant eye opening at the beginning of the film and the second when Mariette wakes up and sneaks around K’s apartment, the beginning of the 1st assembly part 2. We toyed with giving titles to each half but quickly dropped that.”
However, the bad news for those who loved this jaw-dropping visual spectacle (like me), is that when the movie will be released on BluRay/DVD for home, it won’t be having that extra footage, i.e. the four hour length, but only the theatrical cut.
