Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, Tarantino's critically-acclaimed awards contender that plays revisionist history with 1969 Los Angeles and the Sharon Tate murders, is heading back to theaters today just as Oscar season is getting underway. 

Sony Pictures, via press release, will have Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio back in over 1000 theaters this Friday, with "never-before-seen footage bookending" the film. Four additional scenes, totaling over ten minutes of screen time, will be added to Hollywood, which has a run time of 2 hours and 41 minutes. Sony is essentially giving Once Upon a Time In Hollywood a similar treatment to that which Netflix gave QT's Hateful Eight, just with a theatrical release. Netflix expanded Eight to play out like a miniseries of sorts on their platform, which film fans seemed to really enjoy. It also was the first time a film by Tarantino was given that treatment, to be played out like an extended, serialized TV series arc.

So why give Hollywood this special re-release, a few months after its original theatrical bow?

“Audiences have shown tremendous support for this movie, and we look forward to offering them another opportunity to see the film as it’s meant to be seen – in theaters on the big screen – with more sights and sounds of the sixties from Quentin Tarantino as an added treat,” said Adrian Smith, President of Domestic Distribution, Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group, in the press release. 

The audience is there for this movie, clearly, and for Tarantino. Tarantino had toyed around with expandingHollywood while promoting the film during the press junket, the original cut of which ran over four hours.  He even wrote scripts to turn the fictional TV-show-within-the-movie, Bounty Law, into a potential series. (Law stars DiCaprio's character, Rick Dalton.) 

The world building Tarantino indulges himself in with his latest film is very inviting and worthy of spending more time with. It also serves as an aspiring reminder to filmmakers and film watchers that just because scenes ended up on the cutting room floor, that doesn't mean they don't still have value or won't be seen in the venue they were intended. 

Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is now playing in theaters. 

Once Upon a Time in HollywoodQuentin Tarantino
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