Sometimes I get to break stories at The Melt. It’s rare, but I’m glad one of my powerful readers in “The Industry” leaked to me these plans for the upcoming special edition releases of some of the biggest films of 2022. They didn’t say whether these would be on DVD, Blu-Ray, streaming, Criterion Channel, or what. They just said “Thought you’d like to see these special features. Please don’t leak it to your millions of readers.”
So here are some of the highlights…
Tár
The deleted “Greenroom” scene featuring Adam Gopnik and Lydia snorting coke before the New Yorker Festival. Gopnik tells Lydia about the time he and Andy Borowitz went driving through Westchester and they killed a drifter for fun. Then the writer starts yelling “Is this good stuff, Todd [Field]?” And the director replies, “That’s not in the script, Adam.” Gopnik replies, “Damn fucking skippy it ain’t!”
The “Damage control” scene features Lydia agreeing to be set up on a date with Pete Davidson in an attempt to change the narrative from she’s a sexual predator who preys on young women to she’s really just funky and fluid. Pete makes a crack about his home, Staten Island, and Lydia follows up with her own joke about the borough that we later find out she has a connection to.
Black Adam
A special “Making of the movie” documentary where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson explains how he can be the star of a movie that’s 125 minutes long but only actually does five full minutes of shooting. “This whole documentary features me talking for 14 minutes, but I actually only talked for 30 seconds,” he says before raising The Peoples's Eyebrow.
The Fabelmans
A special interview with Tony Kushner included in the two-DVD set, the Pulitzer-winning writer explains that the original script was “triple the size of the finished product” and went into Sammy Fabelman—who is based on director Steven Spielberg—finding success in his 20s as a filmmaker. Kushner says he felt “A little uncomfortable” writing a character named “Lucas George” who Sammy “Slaps around a lot” and calls “my bitch.”
A deleted scene featuring Seth Rogen’s character trying marijuana for the first time in the early-1970s and coming up with the theory that Stanley Kubrick filmed the fake moon landing.
Nope
During the director's commentary, Jordan Peele admits that they actually killed horses during the making of the film. “Fuck PETA,” the Oscar winner said. “I fucking hate horses. I’d shoot every single, god-damned one if I could. People think they know what this movie is about. Capitalism, the spectacle. Sure. But what it’s truly about is how much I really wish a big-ass alien would come down from the skies and eat every horse it sees. They’re worthless animals. Just buy a fucking car, cowboy.”
Top Gun: Maverick
During a special interview segment with the cast members, Jon Hamm breaks down crying, saying “How did I drop to the fifth or sixth name in the credits? I could have been number one! Now I’m playing the updated version of the bald guy from the first Top Gun! It’s not fair!”
If you play Tom Cruise’s commentary backward during the 35th minute of the film, you can hear him saying “I wish they’d let me play Les Grossman again. That was the only time I felt truly happy. Xenu, please release me from this horrid flesh vessel!”