Stanley Kubrick’s Daughter Denies Existence of 'Eyes Wide Shut' Alternate Cut

Vivian Kubrick, daughter of Stanley Kubrick, used her account on X (formerly Twitter) to categorically deny the conspiracy theory that the director had left behind an alternate cut of Eyes Wide Shut with 20 additional minutes and a darker ending, which was allegedly removed after his death.

The theory, which gained traction in 2024 after being mentioned on Joe Rogan's podcast by screenwriter Roger Avary, suggests that the film’s original version involved child sacrifice and a connection to the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Vivian, who collaborated with her father on several films, said she had never heard anything about the existence of those missing 20 minutes. "It’s a story that has been circulating for many years, so let me tell you what I actually know and don’t know" she began. She explained that the only change made to the film after Kubrick’s death was the use of CGI to obscure some of the nudity in the orgy scene, a requirement from Warner Bros. to secure an R rating in the United States. "This will be very disappointing to many people, but I certainly did not hear anything about a missing 20 minutes at the time, nor have I heard anything since that would confirm such a section ever existed". 

Vivian also clarified that when her father died in 1999, the film had already reached "picture lock"–the stage at which the final edit is locked and the original negative is cut to match the edit. "Once the negative itself had been cut, you couldn’t simply undo those cuts and rearrange the film: each cut destroyed a frame at both the head and tail of the shot," she explained. Kubrick concluded that, as far as she knows, there is no surviving material proving the existence of an alternate cut.

Finally, this much I’m certain of: if indeed 20 minutes had been removed, I definitely would have found out about it eventually", she said.

Vivian also pushed back against claims that her father had knowledge of crimes similar to Epstein’s, calling the story a "conspiracy theory" without evidence. "But unless substantive evidence emerges—and I do not regard stories from certain people who, in my opinion, are inventing them after the fact as evidence; people often want to sensationalize their part in a story, if indeed they even had a part—the story that 20 minutes were removed from Eyes Wide Shut after his death remains, to my mind, an actual conspiracy theory, not an established fact".