Kill Bill films to be theatrically released as a single movie in December

Quentin Tarantino fans will be getting a Christmas gift early this year, as two of the acclaimed director’s most brutal and stylized films will be released in theaters as one movie on December 5th. Kill Bill Volume 1 and Kill Bill Volume 2 will merge into Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, a four-hour epic that will be presented in 70mm and 35mm is select locations in the US. This unified version will also include a never-before-seen 7.5-minute animated sequence, which the famous director has talked about in the past without giving any details away.

In the Kill Bill movies Uma Thurman stars as The Bride, left for dead after her former boss and lover Bill ambushes her wedding rehearsal, shooting her in the head and stealing her unborn child. To exact her vengeance, she first must hunt down the four remaining members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad before confronting Bill himself. Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu and Michael Parks also star in either or both films, along with David Carradine in the role of “Bill”.

Combined, the two movies grossed around $330 million at the global box office – but they have also been acknowledged as cult pieces of modern cinema by both Quentin Tarantino fans and mainstream consumers alike, despite the abundance of blood on display in some sequences. The film’s soundtrack is also one of the most interesting and diverse ones in recent memory, since all of songs were hand-picked by Tarantino himself – as is often the case – to match the exact tone of every single scene of these films.

What makes this particular theatrical release special – besides the new footage fans will appreciate – is the fact that, by being presented this way, it will be returning to movie screens as it was originally conceived before Quentin Tarantino decided to split it into two films: that is, as a single, quite long but cohesive movie. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair will not feature the cliffhanger ending of the first film and the opening recap of the second, but it will still run for over four hours (a rare occurrence in modern cinema).

Tarantino himself had this to say about his film’s theatrical release: “I wrote and directed this as one movie – and I’m so glad to give the fans the chance to see it as one movie. The best way to see Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is at a movie theater in glorious 70mm or 35mm. Blood and guts on a big screen in all its glory!” He does sound gloriously excited, doesn’t he?

This will actually not be the very first time the two films will be presented as one, since the director has owned a personal print of it for years (it even premiered in Cannes behind closed doors back in 2006). But it will be the first time the official version (not fan films or stitched-together YouTube video clips) will be available to audiences outside Tarantino’s circle and the first time the new, 7.5-minute anime sequence (created by Japanese animation powerhouse Production I.G) will be shown to anyone.

With Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair just a couple of months away, it’s likely that the original films will show up in the JustWatch streaming movie charts for October and/or November (they are currently available to rent on Amazon Prime Video and the Apple TV store). Both Kill Bill volumes are also available for the home market on DVD/BD/UHD BD, but true Tarantino fans would probably pick up a new disc version of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair if it offered a few interesting extras along with the new anime sequence. Food for thought, Lionsgate?