Move over, Zack Snyder and Peter Jackson. Ridley Scott might be the real king of long movies. The famed director behind this weekend’s release The Last Duel has made numerous movies that he later released extended versions of his work, including Blade Runner, Kingdom of Heaven and Alien. The filmmaker has released eleven alternate versions of his movies throughout his career, and we’re curious if his medieval epic starring Matt Damon, Adam Driver and Jodie Comer will join them with a longer version of its own.
When CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg spoke with The Last Duel co-writers Matt Damon and Nicole Holofcener for The Last Duel, Damon confirmed that Ridley Scott did in fact direct a longer version of the movie. In Damon’s words:
Well, there’s a three and a half version that we had to whittle down.
The theatrical cut of The Last Duel sits at two hours and 33 minutes long, which is pretty typical for big-budget movies like this. As Damon shared, the movie used to be an hour longer before they decided to cut it down. When answering the question, the actor also shared his experience working with the 83-year-old director:
Knowing this from The Martian too, the way [Ridley Scott] likes to work is, I mean obviously the script changes constantly, Nicole [Holofcener] was there everyday and things change on the fly when you’re on the floor and you’re like ‘This is different than we wrote it, this location is different, maybe I’ll say this instead of that.’ There’s constant changes like that, but Ridley really likes to sit down before you shoot and have a really long pour over the script where you go line by line and he kind of talks out how he’s thinking of shooting it. So you can hopefully work, and there aren’t many surprises and you can go pretty quickly.
It sounds like Ridley Scott is really intentional about what he shoots, even making a point to sit with his fellow filmmakers before getting to set to go over the script they’ll be bringing to life. Some might gather that filmmakers with extended cuts like Ridley Scott shoot too much footage, but it seems like Scott loves the movies he makes so much that he wants to be in the world more and overshoot what will reach cinemas when the films are released.
I could definitely see there being more to explore in The Last Duel in an extended cut. There’s a lot of history that the movie covers, including telling the story of the last recognized trial by combat in France from the perspectives of the two men involved in the duel to determine the truth behind a rape case.
What’s beautiful about extended cuts is it allows for fans of the movie to spend some more time in a movie they enjoyed without boring everyone who is going to the theater to watch it, and not necessarily wanting to sign up for an over-three-hour movie. We’ll have to wait and see if Ridley Scott decides to release an extended version of his latest movie. For now, you can see The Last Duel in theaters.
