In case you forgot, there's a Brad Pitt survival movie featuring a dog that's supposed to come out next week. Yeah, I totally forgot about this amid the fall fest frenzy, which the David Ayer-directed "Heart of the Beast" decided to skip in favor of a Paramount-approved low-key Nashville world premiere.
Hey, don't fret just yet — test scores were pretty good for this film, or at least that’s what I had been told, but now I'm questioning which cut I had heard about.
Turns out, according to Puck's Matt Belloni, there have been competing cuts for "Heart of the Beast." Pitt and Ayer disagreed so much on the tone of the film that each prepared separate versions. Ayer's "broader cut" tested better, per three sources, but Pitt's more “esoteric” version drew the support of producers/spouses Damien Chazelle and Olivia Hamilton.
Pitt, who has a history of meddling with his own films' cuts, reportedly regards his "Babylon" director Chazelle as a "genius." Paramount, caught between its star and its filmmaker, had studio chiefs Dana Goldberg and Josh Greenstein extend the post-production schedule and push the two sides to work things out. The compromise, finally, is that the finished film is reportedly Ayer's cut at heart, though shaped throughout by Pitt's input.
If you remember, on Marc Forster's "World War Z," Pitt was producer as well as star: the film's entire third act was scrapped and rewritten during a lengthy, expensive reshoot, and Pitt's working relationship with Forster was reported to have broken down completely. More frustratingly, on James Gray's "Ad Astra," Pitt — who starred and produced — had disagreements with Gray over the final shape of the film, including its voiceover and the balance between spectacle and interiority. Gray has since publicly stated that the film was taken away from him and that what was released wasn't his cut.
"Heart of the Beast," written by newcomer Cameron Alexander, follows a former Army Special Forces soldier (Pitt) and his retired combat dog as they battle for survival after a plane crash deep in the unforgiving Alaskan wilderness. JK Simmons has a small supporting role.
Pitt and Ayer previously collaborated on 2014's "Fury," a WWII epic that grossed over $200M worldwide. In fact, it's probably the best film Ayer has ever made, most certainly better than "Suicide Squad," which Ayer has disowned and for which he has passionately pushed to get his own director's cut released.
“Heart of the Beast” hits theaters on September 25.
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