Shot in the dark: Producer panics about film's length; hires new team to edit it

A thriller, which released not so long ago, had everything going for it. Great cast, good storyline and a rather competent director. But once the film was ready and the producer saw the final rushes, he hit the panic button. He felt it was too long though the runtime was about two-and-half hours. He was afraid the audience would get bored and walk out of the theatres.

Despite the director and writer pleading with him to let it be, the producer hired a new team of editors to chop off a big chunk. A unit hand says, "In his panic, he got all the emotional parts deleted and that led to a weird-looking second half. The poor director had no say in the matter."