This morning I sent Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells on a bit of a wild goose chase. I had mentioned there was this never-ending rumour that Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” was 3 hours long and that I didn’t believe it.
Wells went into investigative mode and, first of all, managed to get “West Side Story” lead actress Rachel Zegler to tweet back “our movie is not 3 hours long.”
Then, Wells found that West Side Story’s Wikipedia page links to New Zealand’s United Cinemas chain and a title card that says it runs 156 minutes. That would make Spielberg’s version three minutes longer than the 1961 original.
This means … “Licorice Pizza” 133 minutes, “Nightmare Alley” 139 minutes, “Don’t Look Up” 145 Minutes and “West Side Story” 156 minutes. That’s 10 hours in a movie theatre this holiday season.
Turns out, there’s a much more sexual version of “One Night Only,” with lots of sex and nudity, that never made it to theaters. The film’s director, Will Gluck, blames audience discomfort for the cuts.