Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight has a quite troubled production history. After the script leak and Tarantino almost scrabbing the project entirely, he ultimately decided to do it but changed the ending in the process (we reported). And furthermore, the eccentric director went full force and made The Hateful Eight into some sort of passion project that should promote and save the 70mm format on which the movie was filmed instead of digital cameras.

He took it so far that his Western is now existing in 2 versions. One for the regular mass release in the multiplex cinemas and one that is shown in cinemas that can project the 70mm format (and there are only a few theaters left in the US). This so-called Roadshow version has an ouverture and an intermission that last about 6 minutes. But apart from that, there are 6 more minutes of actual footage that is included. It was unknown what scenes that could be but recently, producer Richard Gladstein talked to Collider and described the differences roughly.

The multiplex version of the movie which will be presented in digital exhibition, the way in which 99,9% of movies are distributed today, it's missing the overture and it's missing the intermission and it's about 6 minutes shorter. A few scenes have been reconstructed slightly and there are several scenes that have been excised out of the film for the multiplex version.

There are several scenes that are lifted out of the movie and there's a couple of scenes that are re-edited. And the reason why that they are re-edited is that - that is also the version that will go on television etc. - we felt that a slightly more discerning viewer might be going to the 70mm. So there is a sequence with Jennifer - which I don't want to give away - where we hold this one shot for maybe 2 minutes and in the multiplex version that same scene takes place but it's just shortened to 45 seconds or something. So there's a minute. So there's a couple of things like that where Quentin cut it down a little bit for the general audience release who might not have the same patience with sitting in this one long shot. And there are a few scenes for pacing that he adjusted for the mass. But he created that other version, the multiplex version, with great care and just as much care as the roadshow version.

Gladstein didn't have an answer to the question whether fans could anticipate that the Blu-ray carries both versions of the movie since he didn't speak to Tarantino about it yet. He mentioned, though, that the Roadshow Cut could be aired on TV channels that show film classics in a couple of years. For fans, it would surely be desirable that the rare 70mm version becomes available more widely even though that would work against Tarantino's initial intention that is fueled by consumers watching films on small devices and not in the sope that they were made for originally. It'll be interesting to see how this case plays out and we'll know more once the home video release for The Hateful Eight is announced.