Forty minutes of unused footage being added to Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA

It is reported that Sergio Leone‘s Once Upon a Time In America, starring Robert De Niro and James Woods, is set to have forty minutes added to the film, making it's running time 229 minutes. The film was drastically cut for it's 1984 American release. Leone was reportedly so disheartened by the cuts, that he never made another film before his death five years later.

For those of you who aren't familiar, the film spans decades as it depicts the rise of three kids from the Jewish ghetto within New York crime world. It was initially planned by Leone as one film, but ended up premiering at Cannes as one 229-minute film and then was trimmed to 139 minutes for the US release. Critics who saw both versions consider the cut a huge tragedy. A three-hour vision aired on TV in the ’90s, and there was a 227-minute version that was nearly identical to the Cannes cut.

There was a lot of unused footage that Italy’s Bologna Cinemetheque L’Immagine Ritrovata lab is now planning to digitally restore 40 minutes of footage to create a new cut of the film. The Italian rights to the film  have been bought by the director’s children, Andrea and Raffaella Leone. A new cut is planned to premiere at either Cannes or Venice in 2012 with other releases thereafter — VOD, possibly an Italian theatrical release — are being explored.

If you have not watched the film I highly recommend you do so immediately. The 229-minute cut is available on Instant Netflix now. It will be interesting to see the additional scenes.

What are your thoughts on this news?