Ben Stiller Talking Tropic Thunder DVD Details Already?

Posted by Robert Fure (robert@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 3, 2008

You got that right.  With the official release date of Tropic Thunder still over a week away, some details about what we can expect for the DVD were revealed by director/star Ben Stiller during the Tropic Thunder press junket this afternoon.

It has been reported previously that Tom Cruise has a rather unique cameo in the film and when talking about one of his more memorable scenes, Stiller began speaking about the DVD.  Cruise brought a lot to the character and his adlibs and ideas were often well received and as such, the DVD will show and highlight the evolution of the make-up for the role and how the idea for Cruise’s unexpected moves came to life.

In addition to that, the film will be released (whether on the same disc or separate discs has not been revealed) with an additional 18 minutes of footage for the director’s cut.  Stiller mentioned that the original cut of the movie ran at about 3 hours long and lots of funny moments and entire scenes were lost due to time.

The Tropic Thunder DVD will also feature something a lot cooler than outakes, a feature Stiller is calling “Full Mags.”  No, not bullets, but mags of film.  While filming scenes the actors were often let loose on the parts, allowed to improvise and just keep going.  Rather than stopping the camera from rolling, Stiller taped the entire process, sometimes expending a full mag or more on just one part of a scene, leaving him with a few seconds for the movie and 8 full minutes of other takes.  This will let us watch the evolution of the scene and how actors take direction and learn from previous takes.  It sounds pretty cool to me and Ben was excited about it being on the DVD.  Just how much material is there?  “The Kodak people loved us,” said Stiller, referring to the 1.5 million feet of film that was shot during production.  Listed by name were at least one “Full Mag” installment for both Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr.

This DVD package has me excited already.  It’s going to be a long wait until we get to see all of this fun stuff, but you can catch the film in theaters on August 13th.

When do you plan on seeing Tropic Thunder?

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