This weekend’s Ford v Ferrari certainly had its fair share of surprises. Not only did the James Mangold directed film have a beautiful opening weekend, and some impressive fan scores to boot, it also dropped some historically accurate surprises in the film itself. However, there’s one more twist that the film has apparently been hiding from audiences, as it sounds like actor Josh Brolin was cut from the final product of Ford v Ferrari.
This weekend, the Avengers: Endgame star posted a photo with friend and Ford v Ferrari co-star Matt Damon, and the caption had a hell of a story to tell:
So not only was Josh Brolin in Ford v Ferrari, it sounds like he and Matt Damon had several scenes together. And if his biased, but firm, opinion is any indication, we missed out on some gold in them there cinematic hills. Which is a shame, because just looking at those two standing around as friends, you can tell that Damon and Brolin was probably as exciting an on screen pair as Damon and Bale.
While Ford v Ferrari does zoom by in a roughly two and a half hour cut, the length and content of those excised scenes between Josh Brolin and Matt Damon are a subject of intense speculation. We don’t know who Brolin was supposed to play, and past his candidacy for a role in the Fox project way back in its early days of development, there’s not a lot of details as to what function Josh Brolin’s role would have served.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a major film leave Josh Brolin on the cutting room floor. And much like when writer/director George Clooney cut Brolin from his Coen Brothers’ style farce Suburbicon, there may have just been a question of how his character fit in with the rhythm, and maybe even the tone, of the film.
However, the caption in Brolin’s Instagram post announcing this fact makes it sound like those scenes between Brolin and Damon could have muddied the waters a bit for Ford v Ferrari, as their characters might have been on-screen friends.
With the central friendship of Christian Bale’s Ken Miles and Matt Damon’s Carroll Shelby being the big focus in the film, there’s a possibility that Josh Brolin’s character might have been giving the audience more of what they were already getting from that central pairing. And since Miles and Shelby’s friendship is the heart of Ford v Ferrari, something had to give in the edit.
It’s been a popular era for requesting that director’s cut that didn’t make it into theaters, but at the very least, one would suspect that the scenes of this mystery character would be included on the home video release of Ford v Ferrari. Or, if Fox really wants to play things in an interesting fashion, there’s always the possibility of releasing what could be called “The Mangold Cut” or “The Brolin Cut”, depending on who you ask, as a Hulu exclusive.
The only thing that’s certain is you can go catch Ford v Ferrari for yourself, sans Josh Brolin, in theaters now.
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