As a writer, every time I see a story like this, I’m astonished.
It’s like when you hear about the 8-hour cut of The Thin Red Line. At some point during the second year of making that movie, did anyone say, “Goddamn! It feels like we’re shooting four movies back-to-back here! Somebody forklift the script over to me and I’ll see if there aren’t some lines we can shave down.”