Red, White & Royal Blue Was Originally 3 Hours Long—And Fans Want to See It

Fans of the queer rom-com Red, White and Royal Blue are demanding the longer cut of the film be released.

The version of the film that was premiered on Prime Video on July 22 was just 121 minutes, but director Matthew Lopez told Us Weekly that the original cut of the film was a full three hours long.

Yes, you read that right, there is an entire hour of queer content that never made it to screen!

The film is based on the hugely popular novel of the same name by Casey McQuiston. In the enemies-to-lovers romance, Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), a British Prince and Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the son of America’s first female president, hate each other, but are forced to pretend to be friends in order to avoid an international incident. This, of course, leads to delightfully gay sexcapades as the pair sneak around and try to hide their new found love.

Lopez told the publication in a recent interview that adapting the novel to screen is a “very, very different job” than writing the book.

“You have the limitations of budget, time, space when you’re making a movie, and time being the most pressing one,” he said. “What I’ve been saying to people is like, ‘Well, take the number of hours the audiobook lasts and subtract it by two, and that’s what was left out of the movie.'”

Even though he had to try to fit the entire plot of a full-length novel into a movie, Lopez said it was remarkably easy to do.

“Why I say it wasn’t hard [to cut down] is that I quickly realized putting this movie together that, unlike the book, this movie was about Alex and Henry first,” the director said. “And first, middle, and last, everything, every decision that I made as the director of this film had to flow into, is it right for Alex and is it right for Henry? And is it right for them as a couple?”

So given the time constraints of a feature film, Lopez focused on the relationship between Alex and Henry and cut everything else. “I watched the movie for the first time at the three-hour version of the movie that I first was given by my editor — and everything that wasn’t Alex and Henry had to go.”

But now, fans are clamoring for Lopez to release the longer uncut-version of the film. There is even a change.org petition demanding the original three-hour cut that already has over 2,000 signatures!

Fans also took to social media in droves to express their desire for more Red, White and Royal Blue content.

Someone on X (formerly Twitter) wrote, "Ok so when are they releasing the 3 hour cut of RWRB? If LotR, Avatar and Oppenheimer can be 3 hours long, I think I deserve 3 hours of something light and fun…"

Another fan posted, "no but seriously rwrb may be a 2-hour long movie but it feels like it's just 10 minutes!!! i need the 3-hour director's cut i'm so serious, Matthew lopez."

We're with the fans — release the Lopez cut!