Ridley Scott's ‘Napoleon: Director's Cut' is Now 3 Hours 25 Minutes

Ridley Scott's historical epic “Napoleon” clocked at 158 minutes, but even at over two-and-a-half hours a lot of material was left on the cutting room floor.

In the September 2023 issue of Empire Magazine, Scott revealed that he had a “fantastic” cut of the movie that ran nearly 4.5 hours. This got people all excited because, if you’ve seen the film, and I did find it to be a good enough effort, it did feel like backstories and plot lines were missing.

Now, after much wait, and rumors of Apple having shelved the director’s cut indefinitely, comes word that the official runtime is now at 205 minutes. This would mean that we’re only going to be getting around 47 minutes of new footage added to the extended edition. That’s a far cry from Scott originally hinting at almost 2 hours of new footage being added.

Then again, 47 is around the same number of minutes that was added to Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven” director’s cut which ended up drastically accentuating the quality of that film.

So, is it ever going to be released? I’m more optimistic now. Since “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” now has an official runtime, and recently scored an MPA approved R rating for “strong violence, grisly images, sexual content, some nudity and language,” I would have to imagine a fall release on Apple TV is a done deal.

Produced and financed by Apple, Scott’s 2023 epic reunited the filmmaker with Joaquin Phoenix as the European conquering emperor. It received mixed reviews from critics, but I actually liked the subversive way in which Scott told his story. I imagine the 205-minute cut will improve upon the original.

However, one person who much prefers the theatrically version of “Napoleon” is its writer, David Scarpa. In an IndieWire interview, Scarpa admitted that the 158 minute version we watched in theaters was the “better,” “tighter” and “concise” version.