The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)
Again a modest budget B-movie which envisioned itself as the next Jaws but with animatronic lions and perhaps bat’s too.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116409/trivia/
Quite a bit of a troubled production which is definitely amazing special features material. Controversy and nobody being particularly happy with the end result and claims 45 minutes were removed in post production.
Now I can see this movie did indeed suffer cut’s but 45 minutes worth would be the workprint I could see an extra 10 to 20 minutes from glancing over the script and a lot has to do with the animatronic lion.
When you actually look at the script action scenes there are many explained frenetic edits involving cutting away to something then to the animatronic lion growling roaring piercing eyes perhaps something in it’s mouth you get the idea. On paper this looks a lot but in reality these are quick frenetic edits to and from the animatronic lion. And I will be honest this would not only make for good special features documentary but it’s practically only in one shot within the film. These sequences could have been quite artistic. The script is very visual. I could also imagine more savannah footage B-roll being interlaced which was beuatifully shot.
Now regarding claims Michael Douglas cut down screen time of Val Kilmer to include himself more I am also not sure this rings true entirely. It looks like there was a couple of extra scenes with Patterson and Remington together if anything and some more of Abdullah character.
A scene that also seems to be a horror jump scare involved when Patterson and Remmington venture into the lions cave or lair. They hear something Remmington fires his gun and a swarm of bat’s flies out the cave. Sounds like a nice jump scare scene cut for budget perhaps who knows but that sounds quite good. Stan Winstons bats?
Another scene that stood out was the ghost lion when killed somone had their photo taken with it dead. This is the animatronic lion again I would guess but the actor opens the mouth of the dead lion and sticks his head in the dead lions mouth to have his photo with trophy kill.
So I think that pretty much sums it up. It would be interesting to see this film with the animatronic lion and bat’s even restored to a extended or unrated version. Amongst some good documentaries about the ego’s at play and troubled production and Stan Winstons missing lions creature effects restored and their creation covered in detail. This could obviously be coupled with the real lions that were trained and used and a true historical documentary on the history of Tsavo lions vs the film. Plenty to make a truly brilliant release.
Stephan Hopkins other film.
Predator 2 (1990)
This would be intetesting also to see a uncensored version. I don’t see much extra missing scenes perhaps a couple and more violence during the opening drug bust operation and aparently the predator trophy scene had more scrern time Danny Glover at a funeral and some bar scene…But this film never had any other cut other than what was released theatrically however there was censorship at play as the film was assembled and given it’s a predator film it would be something that would be worth restoring and waiving the censorship cuts for the true 18 rating for fan’s of the Predator franchise. It’s a very quoteable fun film and it desrves a bit more horror / gore like the original. Quite a lack of special features for this film compared to the original too. It would be interesting to focus on the new Predator weapons and so on and some of the set’s and production location shoots. But Predator 2 is a censored yet solid effort with not much in the way of extra’s also considering the scope of the project.
https://www.melonfarmers.co.uk/bbfc_cuts_predator_2.htm
As far as I can gather the main cut’s were to the guy being stabbed and gutted whilst hanging upside down and a digital carcass overlayed in front of Keynes as the flying frisbee disc chops him in half. Probably some other stuff too certainly a curiosity. Apparently although the shoot out was more graphic you don’t see the Predator kill the Drug Gang at the start and you don’t see extra violence on King Willies Death either. I can imagagine more graphic ends for Harrigans sidekicks or team though as well as the FBI agents in the warehouse but it’s small stuff.
Overall The Ghost and the Darkness is the more interesting of the two and more deserving but Predator 2 uncensored would be an easier sell. So I would treat it as a 2 stage project Predator 2 first uncensored and with the guarenteed revenue from that release put profit towards making the far better more intetesting restoration to Ghost and the darkness with the aforemention wealth of Special features that would be extremely interesting. Cheaper and easier and more poular film pays for more obscure yet more interesting and frankly better films restoration.