As we noted in our box office 2013 Box Office Year-In-Review (So Far), one of the hits at the arthouse early in the year was Harmony Korine‘s “Spring Breakers.” The zany, oddball tale of girls gone bad and a drug deal named Alien scored a surprising $31 million bucks, which isn’t too bad at all considering the budget hovered somewhere around $5 million. It was a big success for up-and-coming distributors A24, who utilized a savvy online presence to garner some attention (while the quartet of girls including clean-cut Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez frolicking in bikinis did the rest). And while “Spring Breakers” will add to its coffers by dropping on DVD and Blu-ray in a couple weeks, fans of the movie might be buying it more than once.
The LA Times recently chatted with Korine, and he revealed he’s preparing an entirely new cut of the film. “I had this idea. With music remixes sometimes, when certain producers take a song and chop them up and deconstruct them – why not try that with a feature film? Using all different footage, making the same film all over again,” he told the paper, adding: “Let’s just say for right now there’ll be a whole alternate film at some point. Maybe on the DVD, maybe on iTunes.”
Korine kept other details at bay, though he perhaps hints he won’t be the only one putting his hands on the footage (“I’m working with different people” — cue James Franco….) but it’s not entirely unprecedented. The folks behind “Anchorman” provided fans an entirely new movie from deleted scenes and extra material with “Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie.” And of course, Terrence Malick is working on an epic version of “The Tree Of Life” from lots of footage he didn’t use in the theatrical cut.
No word on when this new version of “Spring Breakers” might appear (it won’t be on the forthcoming DVD release), plus the Times teases that Korine is already at work on his next feature. So we’ll see, but of course, we’re curious: “It’ll be the first chopped and screwed movie,” Korine said, referencing Southern hip hop’s trademarked, slowed down remix approach. “…It’s going to be an interesting experiment.” No doubt.