A new listing has revealed the existence of Napoleon: The Director’s Cut, from Apple and Ridley Scott. More here.
The latest update from the classification and rating administration of the Motion Picture Association of America has brought with it apparent confirmation that there’s more Napoleon on the way.
Ridley Scott’s latest film until his next one – which happens to be this winter’s Gladiator 2 – starred Joaquin Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby. It was a pretty decent movie too, which cost Apple a reported $200m to make. Certainly the staging of the battle sequences was prime Ridley, even if some other stuff wasn’t.
Not for the first time in Scott’s career – Blade Runner, Kingdom Of Heaven, The Counsellor, Robin Hood, the list goes on – there’s an extended version of one of his films getting an airing. This, interestingly, is seemingly being billed as the Napoleon: Director’s Cut.
It’s hard to imagine he didn’t get his cut first time around, and given that Apple was happy to release the four hours of Martin Scorsese’s Killers Of The Flower Moon, I find myself genuinely curious what was excised. If it was billed ‘Extended Cut’ that might be different, but the listing explicitly says ‘The Director’s Cut’.
Read more: Napoleon review | A chilly skewering of great man history
Predictably, Napoleon: The Director’s Cut has been awarded an R rating in the US for ”strong violence, grisly images, sexual content, some nudity and language.” Who could have seen that coming?
The rumour that Scott had a four hour director’s cut of Napoleon was, in fairness, doing the rounds at the start of the year, with Apple at one stage saying it had “no plans” to release the filmmaker’s extended version of the movie. He’d been reportedly working on the cut since the middle of last year, and had been open about it in interviews.
Whatever’s gone on behind the scenes, it now seems clear that it’s coming. When? No idea. It’s also almost certain that it won’t see a cinema screen, and will instead head to the Apple TV+ service.
While we await further details, you can find the listing at the MPA for the new Napoleon right here.
Read more: Brian Cox reviews Ridley Scott’s Napoleon: “It’s terrible”
