Martin Scorsese may have earned a whole lot of creative control of his films thanks to decades of positive reviews and happy investors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some rules even men like him have to follow. In fact, I can think of two right off the top of my head. Secure at least an R-rating from the MPAA and keep the runtime a reasonable length. Unfortunately for the Raging Bull director, his newest effort did neither. Its original runtime of more than three hours was given the big ugly NC-17 brand. Luckily, forward progress is being made on both of those fronts.
After meetings with the studio, the release date for Wolf Of Wall Street was pushed back to December 25 and Scorsese was given the task of fixing the ratings problem and landing a more manageable length. In order to do both, the director reportedly cut out some of the more graphic sex scenes/ moments of nudity, as well as some other moments that were apparently not important to the overall plot. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the result of those changes is a two hour and fifty-nine minute film with a certified R-rating from the powers that be over at the MPAA.
Deep down, there’s a stubborn part of me that wants to use this portion of the news story to shout aggressive statements about why film icons like Scorsese should be able to drop as many f-bombs and show as many naked bodies from weird angles as they want, but the more sensible part of my internal being completely disagrees. After all, I can almost guarantee this movie doesn’t need to be three hours. It just doesn’t, and second of all, there’s no reason a movie like this needs to have sexual content graphic enough to get an NC-17. Besides, the great thing about Blu-rays is the studio can sell a special edition with Scorsese’s original vision and he can make it as long as he damn well pleases. If the movie is good enough, people will watch too.
As for how good Wolf Of Wall Street is, the jury is still out. It missed out on many of the film festivals it likely would have hit had it been done sooner. At this point, the film is mostly only getting showings for friends and family members, as it did in New York City this past Monday.
To remind yourself of what the fuss is all about, you can check out the trailer below…
