These bold films confront viewers and dare to offend
"I made out with Salma Hayek," Gaga said with a smile. "I'm like that really annoying kid in school that's like bragging that they made out with the popular girl but has no proof! I'm gonna have to, like, break into Ridley's stuff [to get the footage]."
Lady Gaga revealed that 'House of Gucci' cut a steamy scene involving the pop star and co-star Salma Hayek. She told Jimmy Kimmel that they filmed a scene in which their characters get a phone call informing them that their assassination attempt on Patrizia Reggiani's ex-husband Maurizio Gucci was successful, and then they share a kiss.
Cameron Crowe originally intended the character William Miller to convince his domineering mother to let him write for Rolling Stone by having her listen to Led Zeppelin's 'Stairway to Heaven,' with all eight minutes of it on screen as she slowly came around to the irrefutable power of rock.
But Zeppelin refused to give Crowe permission to use the song, so the scene was cut. Fortunately, it was included as a bonus on the DVD, which told viewers when to hit play on their own copy of the song in order to sync up with the visuals.
Scott's intended ambiguity was largely cut out of the theatrical cut, but he felt so strongly that it belonged that he put it back in for the 1992 director's cut.
The titular Bill remains off screen for large chunks of Quentin Tarantino's first two volumes of 'Kill Bill,' and he only gets significant screen time at the end of Vol. 2, though it's still not much. A scene was cut in which he fights and kills Michael Jai White, and it is often argued to be the missing piece that would have made his sandwich-making episode much more convincingly threatening.
An infamous deleted scene of John and Sarah Conner modifying Terminator's default setting by manually operating his CPU was not only an impressive VFX moment, but also one in which the titular machine is reprogrammed to help save the human race.
Many fans argue that the scene was integral for the rest of the film, particularly in how the Terminator becomes an empathetic figure by the final scene. The deleted clip was eventually released on the limited edition.
The beloved film originally contained a dance number for a song called 'Jitterbug,' but it was ultimately cut from the movie because they needed to shorten the run time, and because studio executives feared not only that the song was too upbeat, but that it would date the film.
It's notably one of the most expensive scenes to not make the final cut, as production spent a reported US$80,000 to film it, spanning five weeks of hard work.
A full three-minute clip of Captain America was cut from the final version of 'The Avengers,' which showed Steve Rogers experiencing the surreal jump in time after 70 years of sleep. We also see him saving his waitress in this scene during the alien invasion later. Plus, as he adjusts to the 21st century, Stan Lee makes a cheeky cameo.
Hannibal Lecter had a moment of real sympathy that was cut from the film, in which he speaks about fellow psychopath Buffalo Bill. He tells Clarice Starling in a voice different to his usual condescension that Bill was made a monster "through years of systematic abuse." His eyes start to water as he talks about Bill's childhood trauma, and though you can hear some of the speech on a tape recorder in the final cut, you miss this moment of sincerity.
The process of filming 'Anchorman' involved shooting a mountain of material and then whittling it down in the editing room. But there was so much extra footage from the first film that they made it into a second film called 'Wake Up, Ron Burgundy,' which is the highest honor of any deleted scene. There is so much outrageous footage that it's hard to pick just one!
Sources: (ScreenCrush) (FandomWire) (Den of Geek) (HuffPost)
See also: Iconic movie characters with surprisingly little screen time
Interestingly, the TV adaptation of the film shows Rob (now played by Zoë Kravitz) face the same deleted scene dilemma, and she even goes to scope out the cheating husband who turns out to be a huge jerk. But still, she makes the same choice as John Cusack's Rob, because she wouldn't want someone to run away with her collection because she made a mistake.
This film has repeatedly come back into the spotlight for the competing perceptions of Andy (Anne Hathaway) and evil boss Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), but in one controversial deleted scene Andy helps distract a VIP from Miranda's drunken husband and a relieved Miranda whispers “Thank you” to Andy.
In a deleted scene, Rob goes to buy a vinyl collection but finds that the seller wants US$50 and not a penny more for the best collection he's ever seen—the seller is getting her revenge on her unfaithful husband. Rob tries to negotiate a higher price but she wouldn't budge. It shows him to be a man of principles, and demonstrates music's unspoken code.
Many Marvel fans were upset to learn that a scene showing a woman leaving Valkyrie's (Tessa Thompson) bedroom had been cut, because it would have shown her to be bisexual, which is how Thompson and Taika Waititi saw the character.
In an interview with Rolling Stone in 2017, Thompson said the decision was based on Valkyrie's comic book relationship with anthropologist Annabelle Riggs. They even shot the scene, but it was cut because it reportedly distracted from some “vital exposition.”
Though it was only rumors back on the internet of 2001, Huffington Post found out in 2017 that NSYNC really did participate in the filming of 'Episode II.' Joey Fatone told the outlet that it was apparently at the behest of their daughters that George Lucas and producer Rick McCallum invited the boyband to appear as Jedi Knights.
The plan was to have the group feature in the Geonosis battle and at a meeting between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Only Joey Fatone and his brother, Steven, along with JC Chasez and Chris Kirkpatrick could make it to filming while on a short break from their PopOdyssey tour. Fans weren't happy about the news, however, so the scenes with the boyband were cut.
The character of Captain Quint gets so little introduction in the 1975 classic, but in one deleted scene he enters a music shop to find strong fishing line he could make from piano string and his character is hilariously illuminated in how he disturbs a child testing out an oboe.
One of the most infamously cut scenes is from James Cameron's 'Aliens,' which reveals that Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) had a daughter—and that she died two years ago while Ripley was still in hypersleep.
There is so much that goes into the making of a film, and so many various constraints and expectations from the numerous people involved, that a huge amount of fine cinema has never made it to the big screen. Time constraints might seem to be a thing of the past with today's films, which often exceed two hours, but nearly every director will have to make hard decisions in the cutting room, and sometimes that means deleting scenes that fans perhaps might have loved to see.
Click through to see some of the most famous scenes from beloved movies that didn't make the final cut.
Famous deleted scenes fans would have loved to see
The best scenes that were left behind on the cutting room floor
MOVIES Cinema
There is so much that goes into the making of a film, and so many various constraints and expectations from the numerous people involved, that a huge amount of fine cinema has never made it to the big screen. Time constraints might seem to be a thing of the past with today's films, which often exceed two hours, but nearly every director will have to make hard decisions in the cutting room, and sometimes that means deleting scenes that fans perhaps might have loved to see.
Click through to see some of the most famous scenes from beloved movies that didn't make the final cut.