So, apparently Gary Dauberman’s “Salem’s Lot,” an endlessly delayed film, which went straight to Max streaming, had an original cut of 3 hours, but due to studio intervention, had to be snipped down to 113 minutes. That’s almost an hour of the original cut gone.
Here’s Dauberman explaining the “necessary evil” that led to shedding over an hour’s worth of footage:
There’s a lot left out. My first draft of the script is 180-odd pages or something because you’re trying to include everything. And a lot of it has to do with a lot of the secondary characters and stuff that I spoke about. So it was sad to see that stuff go, but it’s like a necessary evil.
The end result is that reviews haven’t been very kind for Dauberman’s film, which has had many critics pointing out plot holes, lack of character development and missing storylines. It currently sits at 50 on Metacritic and 50% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The two previous screen adaptations, released in 1979 and 2004, were three hours each, clocking in respectively at 181 minutes and 183 minutes. There’s currently no indication yet as to whether Dauberman’s director’s cut will ever be released.
The film, written and directed by Dauberman, and starring Lewis Pullman, Makenzie Leigh, Bill Camp, Alfre Woodard, completed production in November 2021. It then had some reshoots in the Spring of 2022. Its release date also kept getting delayed — it went from a September 9, 2022 launch to April 21, 2023 and then it disappeared off the Warner Bros calendar.
Dauberman’s directorial debut was 2019’s “Annabelle Comes Home,” he also wrote both “It” movies for WB as well as “The Nun,” “Annabelle,” and “Annabelle: Creation.” Suffice to say, his “Salem’s Lot” was not only dumped, but also became the victim of studio intervention.