A director's cut of the 2024 biopic Reagan, starring Dennis Quaid as former President Ronald Reagan, is heading back to theaters this summer and fall with new footage that was cut from the original release. According to Deadline, plans call for limited screenings on July 4 in more than a dozen cities, followed by a wider release in September across 600 theaters.
The extended version runs approximately 10 minutes longer than the original cut. According to Deadline, the additional scenes include moments between Reagan and his wife Nancy, played by Penelope Ann Miller, in the Oval Office, a scene between Reagan and his alcoholic father Jack, and scenes at the Reagans' ranch near Santa Barbara.
Director Sean McNamara addressed the new footage directly. "One of the hardest things about directing a feature film is leaving behind incredible moments on the cutting room floor," McNamara said. "I'm so happy to have some of my favorite scenes back in the film for audiences to experience them for the first time."
In its original theatrical run, the film earned a worldwide gross of more than $30 million, according to Box Office Mojo. That made it a modest commercial success, though the film drew sharply divided reactions depending on the source of the review.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film carries a critics' score of 17 percent and an audience score of 98 percent, a gap that drew considerable attention when the film first released. Author Paul Kengor, whose books on Reagan served as the basis for the film and who worked directly with the filmmakers, drew a comparison between the score gap and Reagan's landslide presidential victories.
"Yeah, the disparity is really profound," Kengor said. "In fact, it reminds me of what happened in 1984 when Ronald Reagan won 49 out of 50 states, which is probably about 98% of the states. If you do the math on this, 49 of 50 states won about 60% of the vote, won the Electoral College 525 to 13. But you had these liberal critics who didn't like him, and they were very much in the minority."
Critics were not kind to the original release. A writer for The Boston Globe called it an "interminable hagiography" and "a wretched 2½-hour bore that's uncurious about its subject." A Washington Post critic called it "worthless" as a piece of history, while the Daily Beast named it the worst movie of the year.
The July 4 screenings tie the release to America's 250th anniversary, a connection the distributors appear to be leaning into deliberately. The September run in 600 theaters will give the film a significantly broader reach than the limited holiday dates.
