Draven

I grew up in the 80s and 90s, when movies were usually an hour and a half to two hours.

It's rare that a movie could actually maintain itself for longer than that. And it seems that lately, there are movies that seem to be long for the sake of long, rather than because they need to be.

My wife and I watched Blood Diamond last night. Great movie, kind of petered out at the end. I think it could have wrapped up a little earlier.

I went and saw Transfomers earlier this week. My issues with the movie aside, there was no reason at ALL that movie should have cleared 2 hours. And the final running time was nearly 2:22!

There are many other examples, (Spider-Man 3 leaps to mind) but those are the just the two I've encountered this week. What I don't understand the most about this trend is that the longer the movie, potentially the fewer showings at the theater and the less overall box office.

As it was before, it's rare that a movie NEEDS that lengthy running time. Why is there an effort of late to make a lot of movies longer than they need to be?

nemein

Seems like it wasn't too long ago (although maybe a decade now in retrospect) people were complaining that movies were too short Overall though I agree, a good length for a movie is about 1:40 - 2:00. Anything less and you usually don't have time to fully develop something (characters, plot, whatever). When they start to get longer than that it seems like something is getter dragged out/excess footage has been left in.

inri222

Are movies getting too long?
No, only the bad ones.

Mopower

As long as the stuff is essential to the story then 2.5 hours is ok. But if 30 min of it is fluff then it needs to get cut out.

Transformers was about 30 min too long.

The 40 Year Old Virgin is a good example too. I'm not sure of the running time but as funny as it is that movie seems to drag on forever.

exharrison

I think it depends on the movie. Some movies are better suited to a longer format because of the epic feel. But a lot of movies, especially comedies, work better shorter because of the pacing and it keeps the jokes from getting overdone by the end of the movie.

sundog

Yes. Poor movies can be interminable clocking in under 90 minutes.

I'd rather watch Satantango (7.5 hours) or Out 1 (12.5 hours) again than sit through Shrek or Pirates of the Caribbean.

Giles

which one though

islandclaws

I don't care how long a film is as long as it's good. That being said the only real conviction I have is comedies should be no longer than 90-100 min. max. I almost never see a good comedy that clocks in close to 2 hours.

Artman

Yeah Draven this is exactly what I've been thinking, especially this summer. It seems 2 1/2 hrs is the new 2 hrs, and I just don't get it. It would save studios money, and get better reviews if films were closer to 2 hrs. Nearly everyone I've talked to about the big movies this yr has complained about length (myself included).

It's one thing to have an epic movie like LOTR, Gladiator, etc. where longer times are needed... but every movie being 150+ mins is just getting tiring.

Look at Raiders of the Lost Ark, about as perfect as you can get at 115 minutes imo.

Draven

I'd agree that there are definitely some "epic" movies that need a fat runtime. But people have brought up good examples of movies that are just too long. And great example about Raiders of the Lost Ark Artman - let's see what Indy 4 clocks in at

I really don't understand it. I'm a former video editor so I'm always looking at things in a "cut it, cut it, CUT IT" way and it amazes me how many things that have so little to do with a story remain in, seemingly only to lengthen a film.

Brevity, people!

MrE

Exactly. A good movie is just the right length.

A great movie feels like it's too short.

OldBoy

what i enjoy:

horror= 1:45
comedy= 1:45-always under 2:00
family/animated= 1:30
action= 2:15
drama= 1:45-2:00
sci-fi/fantasy= 2:15-2:30 (with the exception of all LoTR's, which should always be watched at just under to slightly over the 4 hour mark)

tylergfoster

Michael Bay has made only one movie that runs less than 120m and then no movies that run less than 130 outside of that one, and I think he might even only have one movie running less than 140m. His movies are all very long. Not that that makes them any better...

GuessWho

I still don't understand the less runtimes=less people argument.


Let's say there are 100 people who want to see Transformers.
If the theater has 5 showings, expect 20 people in each.
If the theater has 4 showings, expect 25 in each.

The number of showings doesn't make a portion of the 100 people not want to see giant robots kick ass.
If people want to see a movie, they're gonna see it
(based on their desire to see the plot, action, characters, etc--not bassed on a schedule).

fumanstan

Eh. There were movies that were too short too, like Shrek the Third and Fantastic Four.

I've been fine with the lenth of movies, and don't really pay attention much to it at all.

Draven

They (studios, theaters, etc.) don't look at it like that. The theory is that if there are more showings, there will be more people attending. Not the same amount spread over the same time frame.

I can say from experience that we often don't see a movie on a given day because of when it was showing.

Ginwen

It's like this:
100 people want to see Transformers today, theater has four showings, theater seats 20. So only 80 of those get to see it, the others are turned away. Maybe only 15 of those bother to see the movie another time, the other 5 never make it back (and a couple of those think about going to a movie in a week or two but decide it's always sold out and don't go back to the theater ever).

dadaluholla

Is this some sort of broom closet or an actual theater?

RichC2

More showings = more potential customers.

6 showings x 20 seats = potentially 120 paid
9 showings (+3 for shortness) x 20 seats = potentially 180 paid

DealMan

Movie studios get a larger percentage of an opening weekend gross than they do in subsequent weeks. The more people that they can pack in, the better.

Ginwen

We have theaters in Seattle that seat about that many. They don't show Transformers though.

dadaluholla

Wow. How big is the screen in these places?

MoviePage

To paraphrase (or maybe quote) Roger Ebert: no good movie is too long, and no bad movie is too short.

RichC2

Which he referenced and essentially negated during his review of Love Actually.

wendersfan

Yes. But in general, mainstream Hollywood movies have gotten much too long IMO.