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Topic: Longer running times.....

Michael Cornish
Film Handler

Posts: 26
From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Registered: Sep 2011

posted 04-07-2019 10:27 PM

With Disney testing the running time waters with Avengers Endgame being just over 3 Hrs. My feeling is since they now will be doing re-shoots for Star Wars IX with everything they will need to be raping up with this film my guess is 3.5 Hrs or close to it.
Also with now having fully taken over Fox films and fox's history of great long running musicals, Disney coming out with "Road Show" feature films. That is providing they dont loose their shirts with the Avengers.

Anyone's input?

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-07-2019 10:56 PM

Everybody plus his brother is going to be itching to see Avengers: Endgame during its theatrical run. It's not a risk at all in the slightest for Disney to allow a 3 hour plus run time for this movie.

The real test over whether longer run times like 2.5 or 3 hours or more can work is with lesser profile movies. Unless the director or other parties involved have a serious amount of clout it will be tough to get a 3 hour movie made for theatrical distribution. Any movie needs to get in at least so many shows per day. A full time theater with day and night shows daily needs every movie playing 4 or even 5 times per day. A three hour movie cuts it down to just 3 shows per day for a full time theater. And for a lesser theater that just does evening shows it's tough for a 3 hour movie to be squeezed into 2 show times. I still remember the release of Gettysburg in the early 1990's. That was a 4 hour movie. The local theater that showed it could only do one evening show during the week and only 2 shows on the weekend days.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-07-2019 11:36 PM

quote: Michael Cornish
With Disney testing the running time waters with Avengers Endgame being just over 3 Hrs. My feeling is since they now will be doing re-shoots for Star Wars IX with everything they will need to be raping up with this film my guess is 3.5 Hrs or close to it.

No studio makes a 3-hour movie just because they want it to be 3 hours long... They made it that way because that's the way the filmmakers wanted it. If anything, studios clamor for shorter movies, because, as Bobby mentions, it makes more showtimes possible.

In the Avengers case, they have a LOT of storylines to tie up. So I'm not surprised at the running time. I just wish there was at least an optional intermission in the damn thing.

It's not like this is a first. Lots of epic movies have flirted with 3 hour running times over the years. If it's a good movie, people won't care.

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Kenneth Wuepper
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1026
From: Saginaw, MI, USA
Registered: Feb 2002

posted 04-08-2019 10:12 AM

C. B. DeMille in the prologue to "The Ten Commandments" assured the audience that there would be an intermission. I recall the sighs of relief from the audience at that statement.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 04-08-2019 04:19 PM

Audiences will go for a 3 hour movie if it's the right subject and the story is good. Titanic was 3.25 hours, and there have been many movies that have been longer than 2.5 hours. But it has to be engaging. A long movie that feels like a long movie with turn people off.

I also think studios are aware that run times over 150-160 minutes start to cut into the number of shows per day per screen. This can hinder the weekend box office numbers.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 04-08-2019 05:48 PM

I don't think that studios necessarily want to create movies with overlength. A long movie usually only costs more to produce and will not necessarily improve ticket sales. If possible, they rather split it in two... Episode X, Part 1 and Part 2...

Some theaters around here actually charge an upcharge for movies with extra length. I'm not sure what to think regarding that practice.

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Mitchell Dvoskin
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1869
From: West Milford, NJ, USA
Registered: Jan 2001

posted 04-08-2019 06:31 PM

Some theatres around here put in an unauthorized intermission into Titanic to give people a bathroom break and boost their concession sales.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-08-2019 08:30 PM

In the film days, there was one Montana exhibitor (now deceased) who had 3 locations, all of whose policy was to stop the film after the middle reel for intermission. No matter what was going on in the movie.

He said his crowds loved it, but it probably played hell with the movie itself in a lot of cases, knocking you off the rails when the story was just getting really good.

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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."

Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001

posted 04-08-2019 09:04 PM

IMHO, I think intermissions should only be used if they're actually built into the movie. That means a logical point where the break doesn't screw with the editorial pace of the show. And an "intermission" show card should be displayed on screen. Lawrence of Arabia is one of the best examples.

Not every many long movies made within the past 30 years have had built-in intermissions. The most recent example I can think of is the 70mm roadshow version of The Hateful Eight.

I think if a movie's run time goes past the 3 hour mark at least some consideration should be made to include an intermission. I can drink a large soft drink and make it through a 2 hour movie without any problem. 3 hours is pushing it. Not everyone has the same level of bladder stamina. A 3 hour long movie with no breaks is going to have a lot of people squirming in their seats struggling to hold it, or they're just going to avoid the soft drinks so they might be able to make it through the show.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-08-2019 09:39 PM

That's a cause NATO could take up, and make an initiative that any movie over, say, 150 minutes should have an optional intermission. (In a perfect world, it would be any movie over 130 minutes.)

The movie could arrive in three DCPs; Part One, Part Two, and the whole movie in one package.

Outside of the whole "it cuts down on showtimes" thing, I don't understand the resistance to intermissions. I think the industry would only benefit from it -- and theaters would benefit more, because they'd get more concession sales. If you're only going to run a movie two or three times in a day anyway, adding a ten-minute break onto each showtime wouldn't make that much difference, so studios wouldn't lose any ticket sales. In fact, since people were enjoying the movie more, they might gain more sales over time.

Admittedly, the studios would have a little more expense in creating multiple DCPs. So what the hell, add on maybe a quarter of a percentage point and call it an intermission fee.

Of course, previous NATO initiatives haven't exactly been roaring successes... there's the failed trailer sound initiative, and the failed "don't release any posters or trailers more than six months before opening date" initiative, and probably a few more. So I don't know how you'd get an intermission campaign off the ground. Maybe a letter to Hollywood Reporter or Variety.

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Justin Hamaker
Film God

Posts: 2253
From: Lakeport, CA USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 04-08-2019 11:07 PM

They wouldn't even need to create multiple DCPs. Just have a reel that is 10 minutes of black which is part of the DCP, and include CPLs for w/intermission and without.

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Marcel Birgelen
Film God

Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012

posted 04-10-2019 12:32 AM

quote: Mike Blakesley
In the film days, there was one Montana exhibitor (now deceased) who had 3 locations, all of whose policy was to stop the film after the middle reel for intermission. No matter what was going on in the movie.

He said his crowds loved it, but it probably played hell with the movie itself in a lot of cases, knocking you off the rails when the story was just getting really good.

Something I'd call "forced intermissions" (like, introducing an intermission in every movie) have been a very persistent, but local phenomenon.

Most cinemas in my current vicinity, for example, introduce such intermissions in each and every movie.

Back in the film days, it wasn't unusual to just put the intermission reel in the middle of the movie, e.g. after reel 5.

In the cinema I last worked during the 35mm days, we actually did a full QC screening of every movie, when possible. We determined what we thought was a good moment for an intermission and spliced it in there. In some rare cases, you would actually get an advice from the studio, regarding an intermission.

You could say that putting in an intermission at a somewhat arbitrary position is messing with the movies, but not putting one in was messing with the crowd, because they really expected there to be an intermission.

For example, we didn't put in an intermission into movies that where just 1.5 hours or shorter, but we received numerous complaints about the lack of an intermission, yet I don't remember ever getting a compliant about having an intermission.

In a not really representative but still interesting poll from 2014 among Dutch movie-going public, done by a popular Dutch movie review site, about 60% of those who were asked indicated that they preferred an intermission, no matter what the length of the feature was.

Still, I think intermissions are a bit of a controversial topic. If it's done right, I'm not against it. But, some of the theaters around here, for example, handle their intermissions in a very botched up way. Instead of looking for a good moment to pause the movie, they just put the show on pause halfway the show, no matter if it interrupts an engaging dialog or a high-octane action scene...

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Karl Belter
Film Handler

Posts: 21
From: Chillicothe, IL, USA
Registered: Mar 2019

posted 04-10-2019 05:27 PM

I don't know if this is a already answered question, but is a theater allowed by contracts nowadays to just add a intermission?

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Jack Ondracek
Film God

Posts: 2348
From: Port Orchard, WA, USA
Registered: Oct 2002

posted 04-10-2019 06:20 PM

quote: Karl Belter
I don't know if this is a already answered question, but is a theater allowed by contracts nowadays to just add a intermission?

No, not in the U.S.

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Mike Blakesley
Film God

Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99

posted 04-10-2019 08:05 PM

If you look in any studio's contract it says the film must be exhibited "uninterrupted" and all the way to the end, including the credits.

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