54: Director's Cut (2015)

[AlbertV]

I just read an interesting story on Vulture about a forgettable 1998 film called 54, written and directed by Mark Christopher.

Anyone who has seen the film knows the story: a young New Jersey guy named Shane (Ryan Phillippe) heads to NYC to the famed Studio 54 in the 1970s. This was the hotspot at the time, you had to have it to get in. He lands a job there and befriends owner Steve Rubell (Mike Myers), busboy Greg (Breckin Meyer) and Greg's wife, singer Anita (Salma Hayek). After a fling with soap star Julie Black (Neve Campbell), Shane becomes famous in the NYC nightclub scene, but if you know the story with Studio 54...some bad things begin to happen.

Well, here's the story: Mark Christopher originally wrote the film to have some more eroticism in the film and to delve into the nightclub scene of NYC in the 1970s. When Miramax saw the rough cut, they were forced to make changes under pressure from Disney (who at the time owned the company). So everything was changed, 40 minutes were cut from the film, new scenes shot, a voiceover added and...tada!!! The filmbombs!!!!

Flash forward to just last year...VHS bootlegs of the original cut had been seen and actually praised. Disney no longer owned Miramax (they sold the company in 2010). Mark Christopher still had most of the footage and asked the VP of development to bring back his cut and she said yes!!!. They found the dailies in a storage unit in a box that was labeled to be destroyed. He got the footage, resurrected 36 minutes of his original take and a screening at the Berlin Film Festival proved a massive hit!!!

So, if you dreaded the film in 1998, look for the real cut of the film later this year as originally intended to be seen.