Director James Gray has told Variety that the version of Ad Astra that opened in September 2019 was not his cut—and that 20th Century Fox made the film longer, not shorter, than he wanted.
Gray, whose credits include The Yards, We Own the Night, and The Lost City of Z, said the studio “took it away” from him before release. The theatrical cut ran approximately 123 minutes. Gray has not, in the Variety interview, specified by how many minutes his preferred version would have differed, though the implication is that the released film contains material he would have removed.
The film starred Brad Pitt as astronaut Roy McBride, dispatched to the outer solar system to locate his missing father. It was produced under New Regency Productions and distributed by Fox, which by that point had been acquired by Disney in a $71.3 billion deal completed in March 2019—six months before Ad Astra opened.
The film earned $135.9 million worldwide against a reported production budget of $87.5 million. Critics largely praised Pitt's performance while finding the film’s pacing deliberate.
The pacing, it turns out, was not entirely Gray’s idea.