The phenomenal Telugu hit Arjun Reddy, which is being unanimously hailed as a game-changer, not only for Telugu cinema but also for Indian movies, is about to get bigger. Unmindful of the length of the movie — three-hours-and-two-minutes — the film’s team has decided to restore some of the film’s edited footage into the narrative.
In fact, there was pre-release pressure on the film’s team to cut down the length of Arjun Reddy as a three-hour product was not seen to be multiplex-friendly. “So in principle, we’re planning to add to the film’s length. We had to sacrifice about 40 minutes of footage on the editing table. Believe me, every moment of what we shot was vital to the story. Every frame that we left out was a bit of our life abandoned for the sake of a tighter narrative,” says the film’s leading man, Vijay Devarakonda, who has acquired an iconic status with the movie.
Now, director Sandeep Vanga intends to put at least some of the relinquished footage back into the film. Says Vijay, “Since the audience has accepted the entire film and its unusual playing time, we are enthused into putting back the moments that we had to wrench out for the sake of narrative economy. So, yes, we are doing a director’s cut of the film so soon after the release because we believe what was left out is important to Arjun Reddy’s story.”
