Decades of DVD, Blu-ray and home video releases have taught us to expect certain things out of a director’s cut. Typically we get additional scenes, more runtime put into side characters and secondary plots and perhaps some material that was too raunchy or gory for the theatrical version. It varies a bit, of course, but the one consistent throughline is they’re almost always longer (sometimes way longer), the result of a director not having to worry about pleasing casual moviegoers or reducing runtime to get in an extra screening each day at the theater.
Not Airplane! Airplane! is one of the few director’s cuts that is actually shorter than the movie that went to theaters. That’s because instead of adding stuff in, directors David Zucker, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams have slowly trimmed the movie and made it snappier over the years. We spoke to David Zucker about why, and here’s what he told us…
