What’s Missing? Insights Into ‘Godzilla: King Of The Monsters’ Deleted Scenes
Godzilla: King of the Monsters was long at enough at a runtime of over two hours, but director Michael Dougherty left a lot on the cutting room floor. There were reports he cut footage prior to release in 2019, and he is confirming them six years later.
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In a Reddit AMA, Dougherty revealed the rough length of total footage removed from the final cut, adding there are no plans for a special edition. He also doesn’t know why none of it made it onto the special features of the home media.
“There aren’t any current plans for a KOTM director or special edition, but we had to cut about 30-40 minutes of scenes that would be fun to see restored one day. They were initially supposed to appear as bonus features on the home video release but got yanked for reasons above my pay grade,” he said via Godzilla-Movies.
Why the additional half hour and change was taken out is unknown, as are what characters and subplots it explored further. It’s possible the material wasn’t vital to the overall story.
Legendary Pictures and Warner Bros. may have also realized a nearly three-hour monster movie was too self-indulgent, and a bit too demanding of audiences. It’s entirely possible, too, that the footage included extraneous kaiju stuff, which would’ve tipped the scales of Godzilla’s already record-breaking screen time.
Whatever the truth, this paring down is a trend in the MonsterVerse. Whole subplots and actors, including King of the Monsters star Zhang Ziyi, were cut from Godzilla vs. Kong. Reportedly, there was enough to make the latter film five hours, but Adam Wingard considers the final film definitive.
We probably won’t see a repeat of The Snyder Cut fiasco, but restored and extended versions of KOTM and GVK getting the “Donner Cut” and Zack Snyder’s Justice League treatment might be worth looking into.
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