‘Backrooms’ is going to return to theaters with a 15-minute longer version. If successful, we will have a dangerous precedent

‘Backrooms‘ has raised a surprising 330 million in theaters with its first version in theaters. Wait: first? Are there different versions of ‘Backrooms’? Now it is: five weeks after the premiere, its production company A24 is bringing it to theaters again, this time with 15 minutes of exclusive material. Obviously it is not the first time that the industry has made moves of this type, but it is the first in which there is so little time between versions. And it sets a precedent that could give us more than one disappointment in the future if it is successful.

The return A24 to relaunch ‘Backrooms’ on July 3 under the title Backrooms: Everything Must Go Edition, just five weeks after its original premiere on May 29. They are 15 minutes of “unreleased content in theaters”, and with special features: they will be included in block after the final credits, they have been directed by the film’s director Kane Parsons and it will be exclusive to this re-release and will not be seen in home editions or streaming.

Less and less. The director’s cut or director’s cuts (something that this ‘Everything Must Go Edition’ is not exactly, since the new footage will not modify the existing one, but is extra material after the credits, like a “deleted scenes” extra on a DVD) are not new in the industry. They have existed since 1942, when Chaplin’s ‘The Gold Rush’, from 1925, was re-released with new material. The modern concept was born in the seventies with Peckimpah’s ‘The Wild Bunch’, when a restored version was released in cinemas. The most popular was the Director’s Cut of ‘Blade Runner’, ten years after the release of the original, with changes that modified the meaning of the first film.

In all of them and others equally popular (and often released in cinemas), such as ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’ or ‘The Gates of Heaven’, there is a coincidental pattern, and that is that the rerun comes years after the original premiere. And often, accompanied by a discussion about the emasculating power of the industry, which prevents the full expression of the creator’s version. He director’s cut It is an advertising tool, yes, but it is also a vindication of the films without interference from the studios. This time, the studio itself releases an extended version when no one has complained that the first cut is mutilated.

The danger. It’s clear what’s at stake here. If the move is successful, the next step is to release intentionally “incomplete” versions to generate two box office cycles. First the base audience is reached, and then, weeks later and when the hypethe film is re-released with “exclusive” material. Here specifically, the move is clear: that the production remains profitable in the juicy weekend of July 4, very important at the US box office. The difference with very popular extended versions such as those of Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ seen on DVD, is obvious.

A24, in question. Although for a time A24 has been the pretty girl of the Holywood production companies for his ease in taking risks, for cultivating undervalued genres and for supporting directors with clear auteur visions (and still get blockbusters and sweep the Oscars), for a few months now his image has been questioned. To the open adoption of one totally pro-AI policy Now this very tricky marketing move is added.

In a couple of years we will see if what today sounds like an extravagant maneuver becomes a standard tactic: launch “version 1.0”, wait for it to hit the box office, re-release a “complete vision” after a month and a half. Before the director’s cut It took months to arrive, now even those small islands of creative integrity have been subject to the extremely accelerated calendar set by social networks and the streaming.

In Xataka | The most terrifying photo on the internet has no monster, no story and no one knows who took it: Backrooms comes to the cinema