Quentin Tarantino has told the Telegraph‘s John Hiscock that his stand-alone Death Proof, which will show at the Cannes Film Festival and then commercially in Europe, will run 30 minutes longer than the 85-minute version that was included in Grindhouse, the three-hour, ode-to-exploitation double feature that became a devastating financial fizzle for the Weinstein Co. a few weeks ago.

Somewhere along the way I absorbed the idea that the longer Death Proof would only run about 100 minutes, or roughly 15 minutes longer. But a film running 115 minutes that originally comprised 85 minutes — that’s significant. One presumes (hopes) that the extra length will really and truly add to the film, and not just extend it.

“There is half-hour’s difference between my Death Proof and what is playing in Grindhouse,” Tarantino says. “I wrote my script — I couldn’t be prouder of my script — then I had to shrink it way down to fit inside this double feature.

“I was like a brutish American exploitation distributor who cut the movie down almost to the point of incoherence. I cut it down to the bone and took all the fat off it to see if it could still exist, and it worked. It works great as a double feature, but I’m just as excited if not more excited about actually having the world see Death Proof unfiltered.”

It is naturally assumed that the stand-alone Death Proof will have some kind of limited U.S. theatrical exposure prior to being released here on DVD, but maybe not.

“I can’t wait for [Death Proof] to premiere [in Cannes],” Tarantino says. “It will be in competition, and it’ll be the first time everyone sees Death Proof by itself, including me.”