Forked Thread: Length of movies

[Umbran]

Again I ask, what makes a very long movie good to watch through?

What makes any movie worth sitting through?

 

[Orius]

I think it is more likely Americans can only stand 90 minutes of average or bad movies. It's not like a lot of people were leaving Batman or Lord of the Rings movies early. Give us a good long movie and people will watch it. The problem is we get too many bad long movies so people start to think long movies are just bad in general.

It is a decision driven by ticket sales. the Typical 90 minute movie allows for a 7pm and a 9pm showing. The longer a movie is the fewer showing it can have in general as well. If the studio has confidence in a Property / Plot / Movie / Director, they let it run longer. But if the studio is unsure of the property or just grinding out a title to have something for the theaters, expect the 90 minute run time.

This.

I've seen it stated several times that cinema chains prefer movies that are 90-120 minutes in length because it maximizes profits. More shows means more tickets sold, and probably more concession sales as well.

A 90 minute Rancid Turd might still have a chance to make some money, though as it gets longer than that, the scatophageous movie goers won't be able to get into the theaters often enough.

Now because tickets have been slumping, these Value packed blockbusters are being put out in the hopes of getting folks back into the move theater and getting them used to being in the theater. But i suspect things will be back to the Fecal Smorgasbord Hollywood usually serves up soon enough.

I see you have a high opinion of Hollywood's crap.

Junky deriviative movies won't be enough to compete with stuff like DVDs, video games, the net, TiVo, video on demand, etc.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I agree that it is mostly the option to have two showings per evening instead of just one. The Cinemaxx theatre in Oldenburg had an intermission in Dark Knight, probably to get at least some sales for drink and food.

If it was just me, I'd probably just pay the price for two showings instead of having an intermission, but I doubt that'll fly with everyone, and certainly not with enough people to have it work out for the theatre.

 

[love.christine]

Every year we have a 24+ hour sci fi movie marathon at one of my local theaters!!

Actually I meant for one sitting. After that amount of time I start to get fidgity unless I can get up and stretch or walk around for a bit.

How do you manage to stay awake for more than 24 hours anyway? I've always needed 8 hours of sleep for every 16 that I've been awake for.

 

[Ranger REG]

What makes any movie worth sitting through?

A good well-paced story. Like one earlier poster said, it has to take me where I stop keeping track of time.

 

[Crothian]

How do you manage to stay awake for more than 24 hours anyway? I've always needed 8 hours of sleep for every 16 that I've been awake for.

I trained for it by gaming in college

It isn't easy and caffeine helps. As does crashing when I get home.

 

[love.christine]

I trained for it by gaming in college

It isn't easy and caffeine helps. As does crashing when I get home.

But caffeine can only give you so much help; unless you are drinking copious amounts of it. Then you're doing your body more harm then good.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

But caffeine can only give you so much help; unless you are drinking copious amounts of it. Then you're doing your body more harm then good.

Nobody didn't say it didn't.

I can stay up 24 hours without caffeine (I don't drink coffee anyway, but I drink Coke and Tea). But I don't like it, and there is little need to do so...

 

[love.christine]

Nobody didn't say it didn't.

Just so long as you know.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Again I ask, what makes a very long movie good to watch through?

What makes ANY movie good to watch regardless of length. Start with good writing. Add good acting and direction, some competent editing and a few other secret ingredients and now I'll stop this metaphor before it gets out of control.

The thing about wanting to keep running times low isn't trivial. I first learned about the notion in reading about Star Wars back when I was a hopeless Star Wars geek. I had read that one of the reasons that George Lucas has trimmed about 10 minutes or so of scenes aside from pacing was to keep the running time under 2 hours so that theaters wouldn't have to sacrifice one showing every night and thus make it more attractive for them. Now, nobody could have predicted it would just DESTROY box-office records the way it did making the issue of its running time rather moot but when your thinking in terms of profitability its something you need to consider.

You don't generally expect a movie to be packing them in with everyone scrambling to get in or waiting in lines. In that case you want the casual moviegoer who walks up to the box office or checks listings to see what's playing to be able to choose YOUR movie. If there's another showing of your film starting soon then they don't have to choose something else. If your film runs 3 hours and there's only three shows a night and the second one is already underway that casual moviegoer isn't going to wait the 3 hours - they'll pick someone elses movie to see.

I guess I'm just saying that IF a movie is going to draw the crowds its length isn't much of an issue. If you can't expect it to be super-popular then from a purely business standpoint shorter is better.

But then again, if a movie is crap and isn't going to draw anyone at all then the running time is once again irrelevant. Having 4 people in 4 shows a night over the weekend instead of 4 people in 3 shows a night adds up to no profits for anyone anyway.

One last factor to consider is what KIND of movie it is. If it's action/adventure kind of stuff you can expect to see more of the movies default demographic in general - young males. If it's an artsy period costume drama then you are already setting your profits lower because the general demographics of moviegoers indicates you'll see fewer people than a shoot-em-up. And then once again the running time becomes signficant to getting people in to see YOUR movie instead of something else that is more likely to have another showing starting soon.