Movies

There Exists A Three-Hour-Long Cut Of 'Ghostbusters: Answer The Call', According To Director Paul Feig

ghosbusters reboot directors cut
By Chris Evangelista

Now that the Snyder Cut of Justice League is finally happening after years of fan outcry, is it time to start asking for other alternate movie cuts? No, it's not, but people will do it anyway. Case in point: someone jokingly asked for a Paul Feig cut of Justice League, and Feig used the opportunity to reveal that there's an alternate cut of his Ghostbusters reboot, aka Ghostbusters: Answer the Call. A very long alternate cut.

This news comes courtesy of Feig's Twitter account. I have no idea why someone asked about a "Paul Feig cut of Justice League" since he had absolutely nothing to do with the film, but whatever, let's move on. This isn't the first time Feige mentioned this, by the way. Back in 2016, Feige told Collider:

"The editor's first cut was 4 hours and 15 minutes, and I trimmed that down to a slim 3 and a half hours [laughs]. We generate a lot of stuff and I always wanna have all the underpinnings of a big, emotional story, and because of that it just added a lot of extra scenes that as you're going through, you know you have to make a lot of choices because I knew I had to bring this down under two hours."

The theatrical release ended up being 1 hour and 52 minutes, while a longer extended cut – running 2 hours and 13 minutes – was included on the Blu-ray. That extended cut includes more character-building moments – for instance, there's an entire subplot about Kristen Wiig's character's boyfriend which didn't make it into the theatrical version.

In any case, in the wake of the Snyder Cut, will we see Feig's 3-plus hour Ghostbusters? I'm going to say no. For one thing, Feig's Ghostbusters doesn't have the rabid fanbase that the Snyder Cut had. For another thing, no comedy – ever – needs to be over three hours. One of the things that drives me crazy about so many modern comedy movies is the endless riffing, and the inability to chop it all down to a reasonable length (I'm looking at you, every single movie made by Judd Apatow).

All that said, I'll go on record (again) as saying I really enjoyed Feig's Ghostbusters. I know it caused a full-blown online meltdown from a certain subset of angry fanboys, but I also don't care – it's a fun movie. Is it as good as the original? No. But I enjoyed the characters and the performances – particularly the whacked-out performance from Kate McKinnon. But do I need to see an over-three-hour cut of the movie? Not really.

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