# How long is/was raw film footage stored? Have there been any famous "recuts" well after the fact?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-was-raw-film-footage-stored-have-there-been-any-famous-recuts-well-after-the-fact/847367>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 2, 2020, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-was-raw-film-footage-stored-have-there-been-any-famous-recuts-well-after-the-fact/847367 "2020-02-02T04:58:09Z")\
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**Author:** ![lingyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d2c977/32.png) [@lingyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lingyi)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2020, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-is-was-raw-film-footage-stored-have-there-been-any-famous-recuts-well-after-the-fact/847367/7 "2020-02-03T05:51:37Z")

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This thread, [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=683013&highlight=film+rights&page=2](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=683013&highlight=film+rights&page=2) covers some of the same ground as this one. And this film seems to be the leader at ~100 years:

> [@Movies shot a long time before they were released](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shot-a-long-time-before-they-were-released/650925/76):
>
> They Shall Not Grow Old, 2018 but filmed in 1918 at the latest? Maybe colorization for the latter part and such updates the time frame, so a big asterisk is needed.

> [@Movies shot a long time before they were released](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-shot-a-long-time-before-they-were-released/650925/79):
>
> A \*really \*big asterisk! 😃
> 
> Yes, the footage for the film was shot during WWI, but it was only colorized and assembled into a film by Peter Jackson in the past few years. So it doesn’t really meet the criteria for this thread, since it wasn’t a completed film that was shelved.
> 
> Still very much worth watching, though.

On the other hand there are numerous movies lost to fires or destroyed (sometimes melted down for the silver content) to make room in the warehouses.

Wikipedia article: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_lost\_films](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lost_films)

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