Ridley Scott Teases 4.5-Hour ‘Napoleon’ Cut That Features More Vanessa Kirby
Ridley Scott is teasing he has an extended cut of Napoleon that he wants to screen that features more scenes with Vanessa Kirby’s Empress Joséphine.
The theatrical release of the historic epic clocks in at 158 minutes, which is a little over two-and-a-half hours. However, in a recent interview, the filmmaker said that there’s a “fantastic” cut of the movie that runs close to 270 minutes, which is almost four-and-a-half hours.
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Scott told Empire magazine that he would “love Apple to eventually screen it.” The extended cut would feature “more of Joséphine’s life before she meets Napoleon.”
Joaquin Phoenix, who plays the title character, said that the film “is an astonishing story” and is hopeful the cut of the film “captured some of the most interesting moments.”
During the same interview, Kirby weighed in on Phoenix playing Napoleon adding, “Joaquin studies the psyche, and the psyche of Napoleon is so strange. The film feels like that. It’s kind of peculiar, and there’s an intensity in that. Napoleon wasn’t stoic and wonderful like Russell Crowe was in Gladiator. He was a dictator, a war criminal, really.”
She continued, “It couldn’t be rousing, because that man killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men, in my opinion needlessly. And for what? To get an empire, for what? In the end, it all disintegrated anyway. That psyche run wild is dangerous as hell, and very strange. And this is a portrait of that.”
Napoleon’s logline says the film “is an original and personal look at Napoleon’s origins and his swift, ruthless climb to emperor, viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife and one true love, Josephine. The film captures Napoleon’s famous battles, relentless ambition, and astounding strategic mind as an extraordinary military leader and war visionary.”
Napoleon hits theaters November 22.
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