Overly long movies -- reasons?

[Frank Cox]

I was just thinking... (Yeah, I do that sometimes. Scares everyone around me...)

How many movies do you see where you think afterward, "That really could have been a half-hour shorter."

My thought tonight is that this may be due to dcp's. In the days of film you'd need to send me a dozen reels to make up some of these long movies; today you send me a dcp and it doesn't really matter if it's 75gb or 750gb. So there's no more penalty in terms of things like freight and manufacturing cost if your movie is longer.

Maybe this is a reason for editing that's not as tight as it used to be? It seems that in a lot of cases we've gone from "it has to drive the story if it's going to stay in" to "it looks cool".

And then you end up with a two-plus hour movie that really could have been ninety minutes.

[Carsten Kurz]

It's money. Most cinemas add surcharges at e.g. 120min, 150min, 180min runtime, So, a 3D movie running 192min yields a lot more revenue to the studio and makes it easier for the studio to claim record sales numbers.

[Steve Guttag]

Carsten, that is not a universal statement. In the US, there are no surcharges for longer movies. Most cinemas would much rather have shorter movies. For theatres with full schedules, that can mean an entire show or two that can be added...which translates into 1-2 more ticket sales and 1-2 more collection of concession sales. Everyone, including the studio wins when more tickets are sold (it doesn't cost the patron any less to see a 90-minute movie versus a 210-minute movie. At least, in the olden days, a 3+ hour movie often had an intermission...which allowed the patrons to "empty" and then refill their "refreshments." Furthermore, the theatre's payroll can decrease by allowing people to leave sooner.

I think part of the problem is that some filmmakers have SUCH power, final cut/edit, that there is nobody to say "no" and to cut the film. That, combined with actual filmmakers that know that the movies is really made in the editing room. I've watched a fair number of "DVD Extras" and rarely was a cut scene such that it would have made the movie better if it was left in. And that is just it...if one can cut something and the story progresses without it (and doesn't change the meaning of things), then it should be cut. You want a movie that tells the story such that there isn't fluff in it to bore the viewer or send them down a path of confusion/waste of time. Keep it tight.

I have nothing against long movies. Heck, my favorite is 2001 and that would be a case where much I think cutting too much would kill its sense of how long things take when traveling...then again, I think the psychedelic stuff could have been shorter there too. But hey, we got an intermission on that movie.

[Bobby Henderson]

Generally speaking, long movies are nothing new. Look at the run time of Gettysburg from the early 1990's: 4 hours 31 minutes. Yet the movie had some 70mm release prints and DTS on 35mm. It was common for bible epics from the 1950's and 1960's to go near or well past the 3 hour mark.

One thing that does seem different now: big event crowd-pleasing movies are running long more often than they did in the past. Normally any big action epic would run near or not much over 2 hours. The first Star Wars movie ran a bit over 2 hours. Aliens (1986) had a 2:17 run time. The first Die Hard movie ran 2:12. Compare those to some big hits from the modern era. Avengers: Endgame clocked in at just over 3 hours. It seems normal for any Marvel movie to run at or beyond 2:30. Avatar: The Way of Water ran 3 hours 12 minutes. Today it's more than just filmmakers named James Cameron making long action movies. I kind of wonder if the Lord of the Rings movies from the 2000's deserve some blame for this trend.

I don't know if the shift from film prints to DCPs has really had that much of an effect for allowing longer run times. IIRC a 35mm film platter could hold up to around 3:20 worth of film, about the same as the max capacity for a pair of DTS CD ROM discs. There isn't a lot of movies going beyond the 3:20 length.

If digital technology deserves any credit for increased run times I think it has more to do with computing software and hardware for post production being so much more powerful now than it was 10 or more years ago. More scenes can be CG animated, composited, rendered and edited. The movie makers even get to see more choices and make changes. This is far different from the 1990's era where the creative choices had to be locked in well in advance because the final render would take so long. So many advancements and improvements have been made that "digital back lot" work is pretty common even for network TV shows. It's also worth mentioning quite a bit of "grunt work" in post production is being outsourced to overseas labor to save a buck, also allowing more stuff to be rendered.

While feature action movies have grown longer it seems dramas with long run times might be more likely produced as a multi-part limited series for premium cable or streaming platform rather than released as a feature movie for cinemas.

I don't think the cinemas are being helped at all by longer action movies. Like Steve said, longer run times equals fewer shows per day. Combine that with the trend of auditoriums with far fewer seats. The seats might be big comfy recliners, but it still translates into fewer tickets sold. The very short theatrical release window is another negative variable. That all adds up to commercial cinemas getting badly screwed.

[Frank Cox]

What got me thinking about this in the first place is that I overheard one of my customers saying, "Yeah, two hours is my limit. I won't go a movie longer than that."

[Mike Blakesley]

I like a movie that's just about two hours or less. Anything more is usually an endurance test, especially if it's a Marvel or DC movie -- all they're doing is lengthening the fight scenes, which are interminable anyway.

The problem would disappear if the studios would just PUT A DAMN INTERMISSION into any movie that's 140 minutes or more. It would be beyond simple. Just make a DCP package of three DCPs: Part 1, Part 2, and an intermission tag. (Or to save a few bucks, let the theatre provide its own intermission card.) A theater wanting to not have intermissions could just play part 1 and part 2 back to back. Outside of ego-driven film-makers who insist on a seamless 3-hour experience, or to save on double DCP production/transport costs, I can't understand why they don't do that.

To those directors who DO insist on a seamless experience, I'd love to say: What exactly is the point of having your moviegoers sit there in extreme discomfort for your final epic scenes? If they get desperate enough, they're going to get up and walk out to use the facilities and miss five or ten minutes of your masterpiece. Wouldn't it be better to give them a break to catch their breath, stretch their legs, drain their bladders and (maybe just maybe) spend a few extra concession bucks?

I posted before about how we had done a private show of Avatar 2 where the buyer requested us to stop the movie at a certain point. It made a NIGHT AND DAY difference in their enjoyment level of the movie and we sold them a bunch more drinks during the break.

Next time NATO does one of their monthly state-of-the-industry calls, I'm going to bring this subject up and see if there's any way they could nudge the studios about this, or if they'd want to.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Any movie that royally passes the 2 hour mark could readily be served with an intermission. It could still be left up to the theater if they show the intermission or not. You don't even need to make a separate DCP for it, just a separate playlist: one that includes the intermission and one that doesn't. They could even completely skip the intermission card and separate playlist stuff and put in an exact timeslot of where the intermission should take place in the letter to the projectionist.

Some locations here have been putting intermissions into movies since as long as I can remember, even into those movies that technically don't have one. That may sound horrible, but there used to be a time when people actually watched movies on commercial TV stations with an ad-break every 20-or-so minutes.

As for the trend for those excessive runtimes: IMHO it hasn't all that much to do with money, as already indicated, charging extra admission fees for longer movies isn't all that common around the world and many theaters around here introduced the "extended runtime" fee quite recently. I guess in those filmmaker's minds there is a misaligned preconception that the longer movies are the better movies. Maybe there is some historic correlation and good stories may need some time to unfold, part of good writing is when you know you've outlasted your welcome and it's time to wrap up and go home.

Given the recent string of failure of many of those never-ending, self-indulgent superhero-epics, it seems to me though that ultra-long-movies seem to be somewhat in retreat as of late...

[Lyle Romer]

I think they should run the final cut in front of a test audience and use cameras and AI to detect the points where people are zoning out and cut those scenes a lot shorter. I've really never understood the "director's cut" home releases that make movies that are too long even longer.

I agree with Mike, around 2 hours is ideal unless it is really amazing. The Dark Knight is the only movie I can think of off the top of my head that was over 2:20 and there wasn't any part that I thought should have been taken out. There wasn't a moment where I zoned out.

[Bobby Henderson]

When I watched Avatar: The Way of Water at our local "IMAX @ AMC" screen I deliberately did not buy a soft drink. Just a pack of Twizzlers. I did not want to put up with a full bladder passing the pain threshold. If the movie had included an intermission I wouldn't have worried about whether or not to buy a soft drink.

IMHO, any movie with a 2:30 or longer run time should include an intermission. Otherwise I'm going to be making my own adjustments. That means either refusing to buy drinks (or anything else) from the snack counter to protect my bladder. Or I'm going to miss part of the movie going to the restroom.

One of the nice things about watching movies at home: there is a pause button. I can go take a leak without missing anything. These "filmmakers" who create really long movies but want a "seamless" presentation are out of touch with reality.

[Mike Blakesley]

I've really never understood the "director's cut" home releases that make movies that are too long even longer.

That's the truth. I once watched the "director's cut" of "The Blues Brothers" that had extra scenes of Aykroyd at his job, or explained how the magical car got its powers, showed the boys discussing why they need to raise the money for the orphanage, etc. Each of them slowed the movie down and wrecked the flow. They deserved to be on the cutting room floor.

[Bobby Henderson]

It's a rare thing that a "Director's Cut" version of a movie will make any improvement. But there are some good examples where the original theatrical cut stank compared to the "Director's Cut."

The Abyss is one example of a revised cut being vastly superior to its original theatrical version. The version of The Abyss that was released in 1989 was honestly not a completed movie. IIRC the success of Terminator 2: Judgment Day gave James Cameron more bargaining power to revisit The Abyss and complete some additional scenes and CG work. The resulting "Special Edition" cut was a far better movie. Even that version of The Abyss is still flawed with some cringe-worthy moments. But some illogical blanks were finally filled -such as the motivation of those seemingly cutesy deep sea ocean aliens.

Bladerunner is another movie where further revisions did more to help than hurt. I prefer the most recent "Final Cut" version of the movie. I cannot stand watching the original theatrical cut with Harrison Ford's narration. It's just hokey as all hell. The "Director's Cut" and "Final Cut" versions did away with the narration and the fake "happy ending" mandated by the movie studio.

I'm kind of on the fence about Robocop. Its "unrated" director's cut is the version that got the movie slammed with an X-rating back in 1987. So, yeah, you kinda wanna see what they had to cut in order to get an R-rating right? The added (very bloody) footage does slow down the pace a touch. It might even cross the line into bad taste for some people. But the crew put in a lot of work (and money) into a couple shots that wound up on the cutting room floor to get that R-rating, such as the animatronic version of Murphy getting shot in the head by chief baddie Clarence Boddicker.

I'm pretty sure I prefer the 1980 SE version of Close Encounters of the Third Kind to the original 1977 theatrical cut. The 1980 cut added more visual effects, but also trimmed some of the more dreary soap-opera stuff.

Still, some movies with their added "director's cut" footage go a bit too far incorporating it back into the movie. At least some movie discs will offer a seamless branching approach (Terminator 2 Ultimate Edition DVD) or just have separate versions (like in the case of the Bladerunner BD box set).

I think maybe the worst examples of "director's cut" or "unrated" cuts of movies have been PG-13 or R-rated comedies where they just added some additional R-rated stuff. Dodgeball: The Movie and Wedding Crashers are two examples that come to mind. I think movie studios were pulling this crap as a sort of marketing ploy to try to sell more DVDs.