Talking in a recent interview, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice editor David Brenner has revealed that the original cut of the divisive movie was nearly FOUR HOURS long.
Even as someone who enjoyed it, I can't deny that the first hour felt like a clip show of sorts as we jumped from one scene to the next, and it's now clear that Zack Snyder is shooting far too much (something the studio will hopefully put a stop to with Justice League, especially after Batman v Superman underperformed at the box office). While you can't fault the filmmaker's ambition, it's clear that another pass at the script before shooting began to trim the fat would have been beneficial; instead, that was done in the editing process, and...well, the rest is history.
"It was a lot to juggle. So the plot lines of a couple characters had to go. These people are currently in the movie but we don’t track them, and it’s okay," Brenner explains. "What’s kind of fun is that we went back and did an extended cut where we put a lot of this stuff back, and we refined it into the same rhythm as the theatrical release. So what was once a nearly four-hour cut with absolutely everything was ridiculous – ended up being about a three-hour cut, once all these added story lines were refined with the fat was cut out."
What he's referring to there is of course the planned R-Rated "Ulltimate" Cut of Batman v Superman, and to be fair, it's not uncommon for movies to have a very long rough assembly cut. However, it seems like it's something of a bad habit for Snyder as Brenner went through the same thing with Man of Steel!
"I remember being a little worried. Three and a half hours, okay, that’s fine for a movie of this size, the way Zack likes to work. This was more daunting. But we cut down ‘Man of Steel’ from about 3 and half hours, I knew we’d get this done."
Batman v Superman still ended up being a rather lengthy two hours and thirty one minutes, and considering the fact it was one of the most expensive movies of all-time, you'd best believe Warner Bros. probably won't allow Snyder to indulge himself quite so much next time. Whole subplots and characters being cut proves that more than just some forgettable deleted scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, and it's beginning to feel like this "Ultimate" Cut may be the studio's way of recouping their costs...