With his new movie MIDSOMMAR, director Ari Aster provided audiences with over two hours of fear in the sun with the bright, scenic and endlessly unsettling Swedish folk festival setting. Turns out Aster doesn’t think we experienced enough sun-drenched dread, and the filmmaker (whose credits also include last year’s HEREDITARY) has gone on the record to say he’s working on an extended cut now that will push the movie to the three-hour mark.
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Aster was participating in a Reddit AMA the other day (via EW) where he spoke about the lore of the movie, some filmmaking inspirations, and if he had any plans for an extended cut. Like all movies, a decent amount was cut from the final product, and in the case of MIDSOMMAR, the initial cut was a whopping three hours and 45 minutes (via Gamespot). We may not see that horror epic come back to full life, but Aster did say he’s working on something that gets a solid chunk back in.
“Working on extended cut now,” he said. “Won't be 1 hr 20 mins longer, but will be at least 30 mins longer.”
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Earlier in the AMA, he addressed the movie’s struggle to achieve an R-rating – what with the graphic sex, nudity and violence. He said they were stuck at an NC-17 for six weeks before getting the film to a point where the MPAA would give it an R. Perhaps with Aster’s cut we would see more detail and flashes of the more extreme parts that got it that most forbidden of ratings, which would probably just include more shots of star Jack Reynor baring it all.
Of scenes that will likely be in the movie, Aster also shared with Gamespot how one of the toughest cuts they had to make was a loud, challenging exchange between Reynor’s Christian and Florence Pugh’s Dani.
"I really love the scene that we cut. It's some of my favorite dialogue in the whole film, and in some ways it was as big of a decision to cut that as it would have been to cut the dinner table scene in Hereditary between Toni and Alex. It was that big of a cut. It was a very, very big day when we lost that from the film."
Should this cut see the light of day it will most likely be on the Blu-ray version when that comes out, but considering the movie hit theaters only a week ago that may not be for a few months. In the meantime, we can think about what else Aster is hoping to tackle in the future, and in the same thread as his extended cut comment he said his next film will either be “a zonky nightmare comedy or a big, sickly domestic melodrama.” Near the start of the talk, he answered “YES. And hopefully very soon,” when asked if he wants to do a “full on comedy” in the future, so the former may be more likely.
MIDSOMMAR is in theaters now, and be sure to check out our review here!