Perhaps most interesting is that following several film critics bemoaning the slow pace of the film and excessive running time, Kubrick — perhaps reluctantly — cut about 20 minutes from the film (and added some location ID titles). Variety’s film review noted MGM’s initial print order for “2001” being just over 100, prompting some to wonder: if all of those (expensive) prints had been struck from a two and one-half-hour-plus negative prior to the revisions, did the studio order new replacement prints from the re-cut negative, or was each print that had already been struck physically re-cut by a projectionist or studio representative to conform to the new, shorter negative?

A contemporary audience may think that making changes to a film is a recent phenomenon. It was common in previous decades (just not as widely publicized), and, in the case of roadshows, it was not uncommon for films to be shortened during their transition from reserved seat run to general release. Some roadshow releases, however, including the classics “Lawrence Of Arabia” (1962) and “Doctor Zhivago” (1965), were shortened during the initial hard ticket, reserved seat release. What makes the changes interesting in the case of “2001” is that it appears, at least initially, that the film was not re-printed. Rather, the changes were made directly on each already-struck print.

One may wonder how many days and in which cities audiences saw the original cut before being replaced with the shorter version. Given the production timeline and the distribution sequence, it appears that the initial three cities in which the film was publicly screened — Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles — began showing the original-length version. The book “The Making Of 2001” cites the shortened cut appearing for the first time on 6 April 1968. Variety, however, reported in a 17 April article that the original three cities, plus Boston, started their runs with the long version. If Boston indeed initiated their engagement with the long version, it is conceivable that the other few engagements that began on the same day as Boston (10 April; see engagement list) also showed the long cut to a paying audience before being replaced with the revised edition. (A film review published in the Harvard Crimson included a reference to the Boston Cinerama Theatre’s print having been physically altered, referring to it as a “splice-ridden rough-cut”.)

Some might ponder how the press would have reacted to the film had they been shown the tightened, revised edition. During this age of director’s cuts and deleted scenes — special features popular on the DVD format — “2001: A Space Odyssey” continues to be seen today only in its shorter 149-minute edition. (The running time is 139 minutes plus about ten minutes of roadshow components: overture, intermission, exit music.)