Last month, it emerged that Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t done tinkering with his Vietnam war epic, Apocalypse Now. For the film’s 40th anniversary, he’s not only given the film a 4K restoration, but he’s created an all-new cut of the film – Apocalypse Now: Final Cut. Having debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival, we now know that this version falls somewhere between the original theatrical cut, and the mega-extended 2001 Redux which added 49 minutes to the movie. The Final Cut lops off 20 minutes from the Redux for a runtime of 3 hours and 2 minutes, with picture restored from the original camera negative. Swish.
Following its festival debut, Apocalypse Now: Final Cut is gearing up for a wider release – in the US it will arrive in limited cinemas and on home release this August, though UK release dates aren’t confirmed yet. You can watch the trailer for the American release here:
For those who haven’t seen it – and you might be in luck, if this becomes considered the new definitive version – Coppola’s film is a loose retelling of Joseph Conrad’s colonialist novella Heart Of Darkness transplanted to the Vietnam war. Martin Sheen stars at soldier Benjamin Willard, tasked with tracking down Marlon Brando’s Colonel Kurtz who’s feared to have ‘gone native’ and fashioned himself into a brutal deity in the middle of the jungle. It’s a bold, intense, and visionary work, sure to be a must-see experience in this all-new spiffed-up take. Just, don’t make us wait too long please?
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