Sandeep Reddy Vanga regrets trimming 9 minutes from Animal, reveals he lost his cool after spotting an error: ‘Ranbir had to calm me down’

Filmmaker Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Animal recently made waves at the box office with a massive Rs 850 crore global haul. The runtime of Animal is approximately 3 hours and 21 minutes, which significantly reduces the number of shows that can be fit into a single day. The filmmaker, who also served as the film’s editor, has now revealed that he regrets editing an additional nine minutes under pressure. Vanga also opened up about how the last few days before release were ‘horrible.’ Animal stars Ranbir Kapoor, Rashmika Mandanna, Bobby Deol and Anil Kapoor in pivotal roles.

In an interview with Komal Nahta, Vanga opened up about what he thought when he watched the film for the first time. He said, “When I saw the film for the first time, I spotted a lot of problems. Content wise, I felt there were problems with sound. What happened was, since we were releasing in five languages, I lost track of which language sound I was checking. Last 20 days were horrible. We slept in the mixing room for almost three to four days. That should not have happened, there should have been one more week. But I am correcting all those problems for the Netflix version and we are planning to get a Blu-ray also.”

Vanga said that he is particular about certain things in the film. He recalled that just one day before the release, he noticed a problem with the sound, which left him fuming. He said that Ranbir Kapoor had to calm him down. The director said, “I’m currently editing the Netflix version, it will have a few more shots, I should’ve kept the 3-hour 30-minute version but due to pressure I had to cut 8-9 minutes. I’m using that footage for the Netflix version of Animal.” 

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In an interview with The Hindu prior to the film’s release, Vanga spoke about his first cut, which ran even longer. “The first cut of Animal was 3 hours 45 or 46 minutes. I chopped till 3:21. I have seen the film multiple times and it is an engaging film. Ranbir is a great performer and will not let the audience relax for a second. My job is done when the producer is confident of getting his money back with some profit,” he said.

However, a recent report by The Hindu said that Netflix will only release CBFC-cleared cuts on the service, and not unrated versions of films as it previously has.