Chris Pine's Robert the Bruce biopic, Outlaw King, has been edited down by 20 minutes following audience feedback at the recent Toronto International Film Festival.
The historical epic had its world premiere as it opened the 43rd annual festival in Canada on 6 September (18), but director David Mackenzie reveals he could tell the audience wasn't happy with its 137-minute run time at the screening, and he immediately decided to take the Netflix film back to the cutting room.
"I could feel what the audience was like in the theatre," he tells Deadline.com. "I'm sensitive to the way they felt."
Mackenzie admits he had rushed the final edit in order to get the movie ready for an autumn release, and only got the finished cut to Toronto chiefs two days before its screening.
He has since trimmed the film, about the 14th century Scottish king who led an army of outlaws to claim the English throne, down by 20 minutes ahead of its planned premiere at the London Film Festival on 17 October (18).
"It was entirely my decision," Mackenzie shares of the re-editing decision, claiming he and producer Gillian Berrie alerted Netflix bosses to the change of plans the day after its Toronto debut.
"Three days (after the festival) later I was back editing," he adds.
The new cut has a run-length of about 117 minutes, and while Mackenzie has stopped short of explaining which scenes were removed, he reveals a much-discussed full-frontal nude shot of Pine, as Robert the Bruce, remains intact.
"I can't understand why people get worked about that," Mackenzie says of the media attention the brief clip has garnered. "I made 10 films and most of them had male frontal nudity; it's a bathing scene and people do tend to get out of the bath without clothes."
Mackenzie is now urging critics who judged the movie on its Toronto launch to revisit the refreshed film once more.
"It's worth another look, and I encourage critics who saw it and didn't connect with it to see it again," he concludes. "It has a different sense since it's under two hours, but it's still very much an epic."
The movie, which reteams Pine and his Hell or High Water director, also features Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ben Foster, and Florence Pugh, and is set for release on streaming service Netflix in November (18).
