One of the best war films ever is getting the ‘final cut’ treatment
Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now is getting an all-new ‘final cut’ to mark the film’s 40th anniversary.
The epic Vietnam war movie has been released in several versions over the years – the original theatrical version, the 2001 Redux version which added in an hour of extra footage, and a five-hour workprint version that has never officially been released.
But just like Blade Runner – another film that has been released various different versions – this month will see Coppola reveal a definitive, final cut of the movie.
It will be premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York on April 28th, 40 years after the original version debuted at Cannes. The festival calls it “a new, never-before-seen restored version of the film, entitled Apocalypse Now: Final Cut, remastered from the original negative in 4K Ultra HD”.
Following the screening, Coppola will be joined by Steven Spielberg on stage “to discuss the huge undertaking of restoring Apocalypse Now: Final Cut and why the time was right for Coppola to do this now, forty years after the original version and eighteen years after Apocalypse Now Redux.”
No other cinema or home entertainment release has been mentioned so far, but we hope we get to see sometime soon.
As to what’s new in this cut? There’s no indication of what has been changed, so we’ll just have to wait and see.
Apocalypse Now stars Martin Sheen as Captain Benjamin L. Willard, travelling to Cambodia to assassinate the renegade and insane Colonel Kurtz (immortalised by Marlon Brando).
It was based on 1899 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, only with the action updated from the late 19th century Congo to the Vietnam War. It was one of the most notoriously chaotic film sets of all time, and the making of the movie was immortalised in the brilliant documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.
