What a strange time we live in now, where movie studios get 'do-overs' -- when their work is poorly received the first time they get to sell it to us a second time. It's the Second Draft Era.
Well i think part of the problem is studio interference has gotten extremely worse over the years, back in the 70's-early 80s you had hardly any movies being ****ed with by studios (aka control freak producers) the most notable are
1) Blade Runner - Everyone knows the drama sorounding this movie, harrison intentionally acted terribly so they would shoot ridley's version but it failed to work we finally got it 20 years later
2) Superman 2 - Donner forced off the movie by the Salking's- Donner finally released his cut but it had too much unfinished footage, i will say i love parts of his cut- the supes and jorel parts.
In the 90s to early 2000's it less common for studios to interfere but a few notable ones:
1) Kingdom of heaven- The roadshow version simply blows away the theatrical but Scott was forced to cut out to much of the story for the theatrical by the studio
2) Daredevil- Directors cut is much better still not a great movie though but its way better then the trash theatrical
Nowadays you have alot more movies that get ****ed by studio interference
1 Fantastic 4- Director cut never saw light of day- Josh trunk was ****ing done with that **** project after dealing with studio
2 Amazing Spiderman 2 - overstuffed, they wanted everything in this ****ing movie- director just gave in to demands
3 Batman V Superman - Hacked to Pieces in post by producers Johns and Berg - unrated cut is better
4 Suicide Squad - Hacked to Pieces in post by producers Johns and Berg
5 Jostice League - enough has been said with what down with this atrocity
6 TROS - We all know there is another longer cut of the movie out there
7) TLJ - Its here because all of the swg agenda's Ruin pushed for KK and his deconstruction of our male heroes and archetypes in favor of promoting the force is female agenda
Just to name of few but most of them are huge blockbuster movies not just run of the mill crap so the interference leads to much greater damage to brand, future profits, and the directors reputation as a filmmaker
Now the list of Directors cuts that are better then the theatrical release
1) Lord of the Rings FotR & Twin Towers (not Return of the king)
2) Blade Runner (imo of course)
3) Kingdom of Heaven
4) Doctor Sleep
5) Dawn of Justice
6) Justice League- To be determined but how can it be worse then jostice league
People are right though most directors cut's don't add **** too the movie because the movie we saw in theatrical is the directors cut. Take alien for example, fox wanted Scott to release a directors cut his response was that is the Directors cut (cause he had no studio interference) but they still wanted it so he went in an added some footage that didn't add anything to the story. These types of directors cuts are worthless but they arise due to a different reason- mainly the studio wanting to cash in on a double dip (blu ray/4k or digital copy). Scott would never have released the Alien director cut or special addition had he not been pressured into doing it by the studio. Now had the studio interferred with alien like they did his blade runner, then i guarantee he would have released his directors cut of alien some years down the line, whether it took 20 years like blade runner- but in this case it is the best cut of the movie and would most definitely change how everyone viewed alien had the theatrical (e.g. his directors cut) been butchered by the studio.
Hopefully i explained myself well enough here lol but there is a difference between the studio forcing a director to add some worthless scenes in order to "sell" a so called "directors cut" to consumers for double dip purposes, and the studio's destruction of the directors vision which leads to the Director himself/herself releasing a "directors cut" which would have been the theatrical cut had the studio not hacked their movie to pieces in post production to the point that the their original vision was lost and it was no longer their movie