Rian's Forum

I was wondering if Mr. Johnson could please answer the following questions regarding the film's deleted scenes:
how long the film was originally?
how much footage (in minutes) was cut?
and how much of it will be featured when the film comes out on DVD?

Also, could you perhaps provide descriptions of the scenes and/or small comments on them, like why they were cut? Were any subplots cut or trimmed? Were there any alternate endings? Also, is there going to be a reel of outtakes/bloopers?

Neosmith:

I'm not sure about the technical questions, but Rian discusses some of the deleted scenes in the "Naked Laura" thread, in case you'd like to check that out...

Hey Neo - The very first cut of the movie (I mean the first assembly, which didn't get shown to anyone) was about 130 minutes. The cut we showed at Sundance was 117 minutes, and the final theatrical cut is 110.

All the cuts were done by me for various reasons, but all because I thought they made the movie better. There is some discussion about the 'naked Laura' scene (and honestly if there's one scene I'd consider putting back in it's that one) elsewhere on the board. I made a nifty little 'deleted scenes' segment of the DVD in which I give a commentary intro telling why each scene was shortened or cut, so once that comes out I'll be interested to hear peoples' opinions.

There was never an alternate ending, but there was an alternate version of the exact same scene, shot in one continuous take. It doesn't really work at all, I think watching it you'll see immediately why we re-shot it in more dynamic close ups. But for the curious, it'll be on the DVD as well.

Oh, thank you!

What about dailies and alternate takes? Are any of those going to be present?

Out of curiosity, was Brick to some extent influenced by David Lynch? It's just that I spotted what I believed to be homages to Twin Peaks and Fire Walk With Me. For example, some of the dream sequences are reminiscent, as are the sound effects in one scene, though I can't remember which. And then there were also the shots of the fan on the ceiling.

No alternate takes, really - we mostly focus on trimmed and cut scenes.

I love Lynch, and I'm sure I stole liberally from him. Tonally also I think Lynch does something amazing, where he creates these fantastic and even outlandish worlds, but makes you believe them. That was definitely something we aspired to in making Brick.