Why cut content from movies?

[Mellusia]

I think I'm probably asking a really simple question, but I was just wondering why is content cut from a movie in the first place? I can understand having second thoughts about some scenes, but in a lot of director commentary I've seen over deleted scenes, they had wanted to add it, so why didn't they?

Is it time or length of a film? 'Cause some movies have come out as long as 3 hours-is the content that possibly goes beyond the 3 hour mark?

Any industry insiders wanna shed some light for me, please? xD

[Doaj]

I can answer that!

Usually, that's the producer(s)'s call. The director will film as much of a movie as they want, get everything together how they want it, but then the producer gets final say. They may say, "We're going for a PG-13 rating (although that should be clarified at the beginning of shooting) and this scene seems to edgy." Or, they may simply say, "It felt too long. Cut out about ten-fifteen minutes of it." And then the director has to go back through and take out content. This is necessary because the producer is the one financially funding the film, and it's established beforehand that they have that power over the situation. A lot of producers have more control over the final product than the directors, and it's only with established directors that they're given leeway due to probably having better insight into what will make the movie sell.

This is why with a lot of movies you'll see "Unrated Director's Cut" for special editions. The movie has some changed scenes, some lengthened scenes, and some scenes that were never there to begin with. They are scenes the director wanted in the film, but were scrapped due to producer intervention. The film 'Donnie Darko' for example, is ridiculously longer in the director's cut. The director's cut of that movie also sucks, which is astounding to me because I always love the director's cut of films. It's because that director likes to explain all of the ieas in his movies several times to make sure the audience gets it, because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else. With Donnie Darko, the producer cut all of the extra jargon and bullshit, and it became a cult classic. That director's other films (Southland Tales, The Cube) sucked because the producers didn't take enough action in telling him what is and isn't okay. Frankly, they weree probably unsavable- the guy is a horrible director. He has good ideas though- he'd make a much better screenwriter.

[BlackJack]

Like Doaj said, it's usually due to time.

They have to make the film marketable, and unless your movie has "Directed by Peter Jackson" on the poster, you're probably going to have to keep it under two hours to get it to sell to theaters.