‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoninh’ editor, Eddie Hamilton, tells Variety that the mesmerizing train sequence, the piece-de-resistance of the film, was about an hour-and-a-half long in the first cut: “We got it down to like 50 minutes in the finished movie.”
It’s an incredible piece of filmmaking, one of the best, most thrilling moments you’ll witness in any movie this year, and the reason why ‘Dead Reckoning’ turns out to be an above-average action film.
Hamilton goes on to share that the film’s first cut was absolutely epic in length — although we expect that with most first cuts:
The first time we watched it, it was nearly four hours long and had no music. It was a tough watch because it was the first time Chris and I had ever watched the movie from beginning to end. Not having any score was a very strange experience. It’s almost a silent movie because there were no sound effects either.
Back in April, I had posted a positive test-screening reaction for ‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning’ and that cut was said to be around 3 hours and 5 minutes.
I figured there was no way Paramount would release this version of the film — although, someone, who has seen both theatrical and test versions, tells me that they actually prefered the lengthier version. Go figure.
A week or so later after the test screening, Bob Bakish, president of Paramount, revealed that he was not down with the 180 minute cut of the film being released:
“I haven’t seen all of ‘MI:7,’ but I’ve seen a bunch of it. We actually just did the first test screening for an audience last week, and the audience lost their mind. And it’s still too long, they’ve got to cut it. But the movie is insane. It’s like a complete thrill ride. And Tom, he’s very good.”
Finally, the theatrical cut we got clocked in at 2 hours 43 minutes. So they snippet about twenty minutes. And, know what? I’m content with that one. The movie already feels semi-bloated, but I’m not complaining about it. There’s lots to love in this seventh ‘Mission: Impossible’ instalment.