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You asked, Ridley Scott listened.
“Napoleon: The Director’s Cut,” featuring 48 hours of new footage and unseen scenes, is now available to stream on Apple TV+.
It has been teased for quite a while that despite clocking in at a whopping 158 minutes, that a lot of material was left on the cutting room floor. Last year, in Empire Magazine, Scott revealed that he has a “fantastic” cut of the movie that runs nearly four-and-a-half hours. As reported by Empire, Scott’s near 270-minute “Napoleon” cut “features more of Joséphine’s life before she meets Napoleon.
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Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scott’s two-and-a-half-hour film chronicles the life of the notorious French military commander Napoleon Bonaparte (Phoenix) from his beginnings through his ruthless climb to emperor — viewed through the prism of his addictive and often volatile relationship with his wife Joséphine, played by Vanessa Kirby.
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In addition to reuniting with Phoenix, Scott reunited with “All the Money in the World” screenwriter David Scarpa, who penned the film. Scott also serves as a producer alongside Mark Huffam and Kevin J. Walsh; co-producers Winston Azzopardi, Raymond Kirk and Janine Modder and executive producer Aidan Elliott.
“Napoleon” received three Oscar nominations for visual effects, production design and costume design. It also received four BAFTA nods for outstanding British film, costume, hair and makeup and special effects.
In his review of the film, Variety film critic Peter Debruge wrote that Scott “orchestrates staggeringly complex scenes in such a way that we can intuit the broad strategy, even as he scars us with horrifying details, like a drummer vaporized by a cannon blast or a massive army sunk to the bottom of a frozen lake at the Battle of Austerlitz.”
Stream “Napoleon: The Director’s Cut” on Apple TV+.
