Ridley Scott has a “fantastic” four-and-a-half hour cut of ‘Napoleon’

Ridley Scott has revealed he has a “fantastic” cut of his upcoming film Napoleon which runs for nearly four-and-a-half hours.

His next film, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, has an official running time of 158 minutes. The director has said there’s an extended version which he hopes will eventually see the light of day.

As reported in the September 2023 issue of Empire magazine (via Variety), the near 270-minute version “features more of Joséphine’s life before she meets Napoleon. He’d love Apple (who funded the film) to eventually screen it. But what they have now is hardly slight. ‘It’s an astonishing story,’ Phoenix says of Napoleon’s life. ‘Hopefully we captured some of the most interesting moments.’”

Vanessa Kirby stars opposite Phoenix as Napoleon’s wife Joséphine in the film, which is scheduled to be released in cinemas on November 22, 2023.

Speaking about the film to Empire, Kirby said: “Joaquin studies the psyche, and the psyche of Napoleon is so strange. The film feels like that. It’s kind of peculiar, and there’s an intensity in that.

“Napoleon wasn’t stoic and wonderful like Russell Crowe was in Gladiator. He was a dictator, a war criminal, really. It couldn’t be rousing, because that man killed hundreds and hundreds of thousands of men, in my opinion needlessly. And for what? To get an empire, for what? In the end, it all disintegrated anyway. That psyche run wild is dangerous as hell, and very strange. And this is a portrait of that.”

Phoenix previously worked with Scott on the 2000 film Gladiator, where he played Emperor Commodus. Speaking about working with the director again recently to the outlet, Phoenix described it as “very nostalgic”.

“The truth is, there was just a very nostalgic idea of working with Ridley again,” the actor said. “I had such an incredible experience working with Ridley on Gladiator, and I was so young. It was my first big production. I really yearned for that experience again, or something similar.”

He added: “He’s approached me about other things in the past, but nothing that felt like it would be as demanding for both of us. And so I really liked the idea of jumping into something with Ridley that was going to be that.”

A sequel to Gladiator is currently in development with Paul Mescal as Lucius, the son of Maximus (previously played by Russell Crowe). Pedro Pascal was recently reported to have joined the cast.

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