On Aug. 11, Prime Video debuted the movie adaptation of Red, White, & Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston’s bestselling novel. And while the movie had to make some changes to the book because of its length, fans are now petitioning to get access to a supposed three-hour director’s cut that exists somewhere out there.
In an interview with Us Weekly, director Matthew López (who co-wrote the screenplay with Ted Malawer) revealed the original cut of the RWRB movie was three hours long. “I watched … the three-hour version of the movie that I first was given by my editor — and everything that wasn’t Alex and Henry had to go,” he said, adding, “My job as the filmmaker is to deliver Alex and Henry safely on to the end of the film. There’s about less than 20 seconds of the movie in which either one of them doesn’t appear.”
Considering the book is over 400 pages and the audiobook is over 12 hours long, there are so many extra subplots and scenes that could have been filmed but were taken out of the final two-hour runtime. While Alex and Henry were absolutely the core of the novel, their friends and families had quite a bit going on, too: Nora and Percy’s minor romantic entanglement comes to mind, as well as possibly more of Henry’s sister Bea and her struggles with addiction, and maybe even more of the politics that the movie didn’t dive too deeply into, like how Alex’s mom is running against Republican Jeffrey Richards in the presidential election.
Needless to say, fans who can’t get enough of Alex and Henry’s story have latched onto the idea of a three-hour director’s cut, and are now clamoring for Amazon Studios to release it.
The Red, White, & Royal Blue subreddit has discussed the probability of getting access to a director’s cut — which, unfortunately, seems pretty close to zero. That hasn’t stopped people from hoping, though, going as far as to create a Change.org petition for Prime Video to release the three-hour version that has over 800 signatures and counting.
Over on other social media platforms, talk of the director’s cut has spread. One TikTok reacting to López’s reveal with a clip of Regina George from Mean Girls screaming in despair went viral, even prompting a comment from star Taylor Zakhar Perez, who plays Alex in the movie: “Brilliant.” Could that mean the cast is on board with releasing the unseen footage?
Others on X (formerly known as Twitter) have shared stills from the movie that appear to be from deleted scenes, including one where Alex and Henry share midnight ice cream together.
It’s pretty rare that a director’s cut is widely released, so there’s really no telling how Amazon Studios will respond to fans’ wishes, but if there’s one thing I know about the RWRB fandom, it’s that they’re extremely passionate. As someone who’s watched the movie twice already, I would love to see that extra hour. Your move, Amazon!