I kinda missing the times when action movies, horrors and comedies were just 90 minutes long.
Aretirednurse81 on
It’s another reason to stay home to watch them.
FribonFire on
It feels like directors are decidedly trying to bloat films as an artistic combat against all the general theorizing of people losing their attention spans.
And I do say bloat. I just watched Project Hail Mary, and I could absolutely cut 20 minutes out of that film without losing anything of note.
samgam74 on
And for no good reason in most cases.
longjumpingtote on
Movies were ~90 minutes long by contract, and because theaters wanted to cram in as many screenings as they could. The contracts for movies still have these requirements (not necessarily for 90). Obviously with streaming it’s not limited in that particular way.
But a lot of movies could use with more editing. The line between film and miniseries is getting blurred, and for the young generation they may not really notice any difference, it’s all something playing on their iPad. Flower Moon was 3.5 hours. That could have easily been a limited series, but it’s Scorsese and maybe rightfully it was kept as a film. But what’s the ultimate difference (if you’re watching at home) between a 3.5 hour movie and a limited series?
Secret-Tangerine9014 on
Not to mention big releases like Project Hail Mary get about 40 minutes of previews and now advertisements between previews so that 2.5 hour runtime at 1:30 is actually gonna run until close til 5pm
tomandshell on
How do you expect people to consume content when it’s longer than an hour without an intermission?
Unite-Us-3403 on
Unless if it’s animated of course.
TyposIncoming on
For decades directors were forced to make movies of a certain length to get more theater showings in a day or so that they would fit the home media format for the time.
David Lynch for example talked about how the studio would give him at most 2 hours and 17 minutes for Dune, so we got a 2 hour and 17 minute Dune. Which is shorter than both the recent Dune movies while also having to tell the full story.
Some movies could be improved be cutting them down but if the choice is a director’s vision or a studio forcing them to cut it down then I’ll take the vision.
Eastern-Decision-416 on
yeah, movies are getting way too long these days. sometimes feels like a marathon just to watch one film, fr.
Ok_Tackle_4835 on
Please, for the love of God, bring back intermissions. My bladder can’t handle it.
JuniorCaptain on
I like that they acknowledged how popular movies with ~2 hour runtimes aren’t completely new, but I feel they should’ve gone farther than the 80s for reference. Go back a few decades and you have ~4 hour runtimes with intermissions.
The main question is which movies *need* that extra time and use it well vs which are just bloated and need an editor. I’ve already seen jokes from people demanding the 4-hour rough cut of *Project Hail Mary*, but there’s a reason it still works without an hour of extra footage.
WorriedHelicopter764 on
Good
HotOne9364 on
Good.
moviefan1997 on
Movies are definitely getting longer and they don’t need to be. I think Project Hail Mary is a really good movie, but I think it would have been an even better movie if they cut 20 minutes out of it. It would have made the pacing of the movie better.
I_Autumn on
It’s amazing to me that despite this, theaters still seem uninterested in reintroducing intermissions for long movies.
That used to be the standard. Then they cut those to cram more screenings into the schedule. Probably made sense at the time, people still bought tickets and popcorn regardless, but now streaming services have rendered theaters nearly irrelevant to most households. I’d give theaters a lot more money if the experience were just slightly better.
They’d sell more snacks (before entry and during intermission), and I really do think they’d sell more tickets. I’m not enjoying or even processing the movie if I need to use the restroom for two thirds of the experience, so I skip going entirely or at least skip buying a soda or a thirst-provoking snack. Popcorn and soda flavoring syrup are absurdly cheap to buy wholesale, so those should be money printers for the theater. But they’ve set me up to actively avoid buying those things.
flpndrds on
If the story is not good enough, no reason for your movie to be over 2 hrs.
TetsuoTheObsidianMan on
One Battle has been the only recent movie for me that has been able to justify the 2 hour plus runtime for me. Even movies i loved the past few years like Killers of the Flower Moon, Marty Supreme, Sinners, No Other Choice, The Secret Agent, Eddington, etc. all couldve tightened their stories with some needed cuts.
Outrageous_Goat4030 on
And?
Logical_Ad_2758 on
The actual problem isn’t even the runtime itself, it’s just that modern directors are completely terrified of the editing room dude. literally half of these 3 hour “epics” could easily be a tight 90 minute banger if they just cut the pointless filler tbh.
Timozi90 on
As long as it’s paced well, that’s okay. That’s one of the reasons why the extended editions of *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy are so rewatchable. They’re four hours apiece, but they never feel like a slog. The pacing is IMMACULATE.
No-Leadership-8182 on
I kinda like if a movie is long, provided its good. Sometimes a shorter length isn’t enough.
pleasegivemepatience on
The length of a movie isn’t really a problem for me, I’m happy to sit through a 4hr extended cut if it benefits the story. Some franchises just have so many characters and/or so much happening at once it’s hard to condense into a cohesive story in under 90-120min. I’m all for more rich, deep stories, and I hope the short-form trends don’t leak into cinemas (like Netflix doing ridiculous expo dumps bc they assume no one is paying close attention).
Wazula23 on
Not the worst thing if it’s a good movie. I just wish the intermission would come back too.
flow-56 on
If it’s a movie I’m interested in watching the run time won’t bother me. Babylon flew by when I watched it didn’t even notice it was 3 hours.
Smithfieldva on
Now do the commercial and preview time before movie start comparison. My showing last week started 35 minutes after advertised showtime.
VannesGreave on
“Long movies” aren’t new. Of the 20 highest grossing movies of all time, all of them are longer than 90 minutes, and 15 of them are longer than 2 hours (literally all of the exceptions here are animated films).
If you adjust for inflation, there are more 3-hour films (Gone with the Wind, Titanic, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago, Ben-Hur, Avengers: Endgame) than films under 2 hours (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Lion King).
DoublePostedBroski on
This is interesting given that the average person has no attention span left.
28 Comments
I kinda missing the times when action movies, horrors and comedies were just 90 minutes long.
It’s another reason to stay home to watch them.
It feels like directors are decidedly trying to bloat films as an artistic combat against all the general theorizing of people losing their attention spans.
And I do say bloat. I just watched Project Hail Mary, and I could absolutely cut 20 minutes out of that film without losing anything of note.
And for no good reason in most cases.
Movies were ~90 minutes long by contract, and because theaters wanted to cram in as many screenings as they could. The contracts for movies still have these requirements (not necessarily for 90). Obviously with streaming it’s not limited in that particular way.
But a lot of movies could use with more editing. The line between film and miniseries is getting blurred, and for the young generation they may not really notice any difference, it’s all something playing on their iPad. Flower Moon was 3.5 hours. That could have easily been a limited series, but it’s Scorsese and maybe rightfully it was kept as a film. But what’s the ultimate difference (if you’re watching at home) between a 3.5 hour movie and a limited series?
Not to mention big releases like Project Hail Mary get about 40 minutes of previews and now advertisements between previews so that 2.5 hour runtime at 1:30 is actually gonna run until close til 5pm
How do you expect people to consume content when it’s longer than an hour without an intermission?
Unless if it’s animated of course.
For decades directors were forced to make movies of a certain length to get more theater showings in a day or so that they would fit the home media format for the time.
David Lynch for example talked about how the studio would give him at most 2 hours and 17 minutes for Dune, so we got a 2 hour and 17 minute Dune. Which is shorter than both the recent Dune movies while also having to tell the full story.
Some movies could be improved be cutting them down but if the choice is a director’s vision or a studio forcing them to cut it down then I’ll take the vision.
yeah, movies are getting way too long these days. sometimes feels like a marathon just to watch one film, fr.
Please, for the love of God, bring back intermissions. My bladder can’t handle it.
I like that they acknowledged how popular movies with ~2 hour runtimes aren’t completely new, but I feel they should’ve gone farther than the 80s for reference. Go back a few decades and you have ~4 hour runtimes with intermissions.
The main question is which movies *need* that extra time and use it well vs which are just bloated and need an editor. I’ve already seen jokes from people demanding the 4-hour rough cut of *Project Hail Mary*, but there’s a reason it still works without an hour of extra footage.
Good
Good.
Movies are definitely getting longer and they don’t need to be. I think Project Hail Mary is a really good movie, but I think it would have been an even better movie if they cut 20 minutes out of it. It would have made the pacing of the movie better.
It’s amazing to me that despite this, theaters still seem uninterested in reintroducing intermissions for long movies.
That used to be the standard. Then they cut those to cram more screenings into the schedule. Probably made sense at the time, people still bought tickets and popcorn regardless, but now streaming services have rendered theaters nearly irrelevant to most households. I’d give theaters a lot more money if the experience were just slightly better.
They’d sell more snacks (before entry and during intermission), and I really do think they’d sell more tickets. I’m not enjoying or even processing the movie if I need to use the restroom for two thirds of the experience, so I skip going entirely or at least skip buying a soda or a thirst-provoking snack. Popcorn and soda flavoring syrup are absurdly cheap to buy wholesale, so those should be money printers for the theater. But they’ve set me up to actively avoid buying those things.
If the story is not good enough, no reason for your movie to be over 2 hrs.
One Battle has been the only recent movie for me that has been able to justify the 2 hour plus runtime for me. Even movies i loved the past few years like Killers of the Flower Moon, Marty Supreme, Sinners, No Other Choice, The Secret Agent, Eddington, etc. all couldve tightened their stories with some needed cuts.
And?
The actual problem isn’t even the runtime itself, it’s just that modern directors are completely terrified of the editing room dude. literally half of these 3 hour “epics” could easily be a tight 90 minute banger if they just cut the pointless filler tbh.
As long as it’s paced well, that’s okay. That’s one of the reasons why the extended editions of *The Lord of the Rings* trilogy are so rewatchable. They’re four hours apiece, but they never feel like a slog. The pacing is IMMACULATE.
I kinda like if a movie is long, provided its good. Sometimes a shorter length isn’t enough.
The length of a movie isn’t really a problem for me, I’m happy to sit through a 4hr extended cut if it benefits the story. Some franchises just have so many characters and/or so much happening at once it’s hard to condense into a cohesive story in under 90-120min. I’m all for more rich, deep stories, and I hope the short-form trends don’t leak into cinemas (like Netflix doing ridiculous expo dumps bc they assume no one is paying close attention).
Not the worst thing if it’s a good movie. I just wish the intermission would come back too.
If it’s a movie I’m interested in watching the run time won’t bother me. Babylon flew by when I watched it didn’t even notice it was 3 hours.
Now do the commercial and preview time before movie start comparison. My showing last week started 35 minutes after advertised showtime.
“Long movies” aren’t new. Of the 20 highest grossing movies of all time, all of them are longer than 90 minutes, and 15 of them are longer than 2 hours (literally all of the exceptions here are animated films).
If you adjust for inflation, there are more 3-hour films (Gone with the Wind, Titanic, The Ten Commandments, Doctor Zhivago, Ben-Hur, Avengers: Endgame) than films under 2 hours (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, One Hundred and One Dalmatians, The Lion King).
This is interesting given that the average person has no attention span left.