Confirmed: No Extended Director's Cut Of 'The Dark Knight Rises' Exists Or Is Planned

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by Oliver Lyttelton
September 12, 2012 9:20 AM
19 Comments

Very few filmmakers have the power to be granted final cut on a picture: you pretty much have to be at the top of the tree, or working on miniscule budgets, in order to be allowed to cut together the movie you want, notes be damned. As such, it's no surprise that Director's Cuts of movies have become popular over the past few decades, particularly after Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner: The Director's Cut" demonstrated the masterpiece lurking beneath the somewhat tarnished original. Of course, the form's been bastardized somewhat, either by films like "Donnie Darko" where the filmmaker's preferred cut is substantially worse than the original, or by the stream of 'Unseen & Unrated' versions of comedies that add an extra 30 seconds of dick jokes to a picture. But that's neither here nor there.

Now, rumors of one particular director's cut made the blogosphere light up recently, with Nuke The Fridge reporting that an Extended Director's Cut of Christopher Nolan's megahit "The Dark Knight Rises" was heading to DVD & Blu-ray, featuring an extra 30 minutes of footage (for a film that already ran 165 minutes or so) including Bane's origin story, and that the new version was set for release next June, just ahead of the release of the Nolan-produced Superman flick "Man Of Steel." But insiders close to the director confirmed to us yesterday that no such plans exist, and reports of an extended cut of the film are completely false.

Really, anyone listening to Nolan, who's never included many deleted scenes on his home video releases, would have known that the chances were very slim -- Nolan told MTV shortly after the release of "The Dark Knight Rises" that ""I tend to try and weed things out on paper because it's crazy expensive to shoot things that aren't going to be in the film. It also takes up a lot of time and energy. Pretty much with all my films, there are very few deleted scenes, which always disappoints the DVD crowd."

And while reports of a four-hour cut circulated months ago, that's pretty much standard for the first assembly cut of any movie -- as Nolan says, "what we do editorially is just compress and stuff everything into the sandwich. Frankly, a lot of that is about music, about [composer] Hans Zimmer. We're going to cut this film faster than anybody can care about anything, so [Zimmer has] to find a way to score it so people feel what they're meant to feel as they go along. By the end, the last two reels are practically a musical. That's the way it works on all of the films I've done."

Disappointing news for fans, perhaps, but we like "The Dark Knight Rises" just the way it was, so we're not too mournful about this. No official details about "The Dark Knight Rises"' home video release have been announced, but it's should be in stores in time for the Christmas rush.

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More: Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises

19 Comments

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Eric | December 22, 2012 11:10 PMReply

Director Nolan may be working on a Boy Wonder continum of the Dark Knight!
Querelle | September 13, 2012 9:18 PMReply

We would've also accepted "rumors of one particular director's cut lit up the blogosphere recently."
Fairy Hsu | September 12, 2012 7:48 PMReply

Play soy sauce
bobby | September 12, 2012 12:46 PMReply

dude, still with the 4-hour early cut thing? the rumor that was based on a joke an MTV writer made?
gracediamond | September 12, 2012 12:16 PMReply

I feel like Nolan must want to punch Lindy Hemming in the face for ever mentioning that there was more glorious Bane footage left on the cutting room floor. The rule here is don't promise the fandom Tom Hardy chained to a wall if you're not going to deliver Tom Hardy chained to a wall.
Nero | September 12, 2012 11:11 AMReply

The main thing to get out of this story is to never, ever go to a website like Nuke the Fridge. Its run by dumb monkeys, which is an insult to monkeys who are quite intelligent. That site is constantly trolling for hits. Don't do it.
Nina | September 12, 2012 10:34 AMReply

Thank You Nolan
Christian | September 12, 2012 10:10 AMReply

Thank God, the film is perfect as it is. The perfect end of the greatest superhero trilogy of all time.
Nuke Nuke The Fridge | September 12, 2012 10:00 AMReply

Well, fabricating a story is one way to drive traffic to your site. Seeing as Nuke The Fridge have blatantly made the story up TWICE they've lost any credability they might have had.
nuke nuke the fridge | September 12, 2012 5:06 PM

Enough for The Playlist to feel the need to write this denial though
What? | September 12, 2012 10:53 AM

C'mon, those guys? They never had credibility to begin with.
AE | September 12, 2012 9:46 AMReply

..Liked The Dark Knight, liked Inception a whole lot more, TDKR seemed to me a huge mess, one that had been so highly anticipated everyone hailed it a masterpiece anyway, and who wants to argue with the rabid comic book nuts. Extended cut could possibly rescue a film that seemed to collapse into nothing much at all, but I've a hunch TDKR will be forgotten about in a few months.
AE | September 13, 2012 10:28 AM

As I said who wants to argue with the comic book militia, so okay it's fantastic, flawless, matches the power of Welles etc etc
MongooseCmr | September 12, 2012 12:46 PM

@Tony, i hate to break it to you...
MARKO | September 12, 2012 11:33 AM

How the hell is this one a "mess" and Inception isn't, or TDK? Those two are a lot more complicated than this one. If you consider a "mess" being a complicated movie that is..
"Rises" couldn't be told any slower. And so detailed.
And it will not be forgotten this fast. Trust me. In a few months, the Oscars are coming. I have a feeling it will win in one category. Not necessarily the best pic award, but music at least.
Doc | September 12, 2012 10:20 AM

Sounds like you got issues more than anything.
Tony Soprano | September 12, 2012 10:16 AM

Troll! If TDKR is a mess, so is the rest of Nolan's filmography, mr. bandwagon hater.
Plainview | September 12, 2012 9:34 AMReply

Anyone that actually thought this was true was simply kidding themselves. Nolan has never believed in director's cuts, and has consistently said that the theatrical cut is his final cut.
battyman | September 12, 2012 9:29 AMReply

Thanks for ruining our hope/