Movies have been getting longer for a few years or so but they are especially long this year. Look at the biggest films this year and see how they are about 20-30min longer than they would be in the past.
- The Flash - 2h 24m
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 2h 34m
- Oppenheimer - 3h
- Barbie - 1h 54m
- John Wick: Chapter 4 - 2h 49m
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - 2h 29m
And even crazier are the 2 parter movies.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - 2h 16m
- Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One - 2h 43m
- Dune 2 - reported way over 2h
A few years ago this was different.
- Action films like Indiana Jones, Marvel movies, John Wick and Mission Impossible used to be about 2h - 2h 15m.
- Movies closest to Barbie like Clueless and Legally Blonde were about 1h 30m.
- Biopics like Oppenheimer were longer but not 3h. Lincoln was 2h 30m.
- Animated films would be 1h 45m max.
- Lynch’s original Dune was almost 3h cut by the studio to 2h 15m.
I remember when Harry Potter Deathly Hallows got criticism for being a 2 parter. The Dark Knight Rises got push back from theaters saying it was too long and made it difficult to have a lot of showtimes. Now it feels like these long showtimes and 2 parters are the rule rather than the exception.
Do you prefer movies longer or do you think they are getting too bloated and need to be cut down?
Also what is causing this trend of long films? I think it’s streaming and binging making people more comfortable watching TV for a long time. But I see people say that attention spans are getting shorter thanks to the internet so I don’t really know.
I actually prefer this, I think the John Wick 4 length was perfect, I wouldn’t have minded a 3 hour Across the spiderverse runtime.
Even Dune I thought had a fine runtime. I think I could legitimately sit through a 5 hour Dune 2 / 3rd Spiderverse movie and love every second.
This is generally only applicable to peak content though. I’m not sitting around for 3 hours watching Dial of destiny.
This is the main rub. A 3 hour movie that actually needs to be 3 hours can be great. I love all 3 Lord of the Rings movies. But as much as I wanted it to be really good, Dial of Destiny did not need its run time, nor did it use it to add substance
Man, I saw Dial of Destiny last night and I felt like it used its runtime well. Could’ve done without yet another train fight, and the chase sequences might’ve been cut down a bit, but the only thing that felt saggy about this movie was Harrison Ford’s skin.
This is exactly how I felt - like the opening sequence was too long for what it contributed, and that the chase sequences could have been cut down. Sounds like we just disagree on the overall impact due to those aspects
So I had just seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning over the weekend, and had to laugh when the opening sequence of this one had almost the same action scene on top of a train going through a tunnel. And then also had a chase scene through narrow alleyways in a comically tiny vehicle.
Don’t get me wrong, the action sequences were well-executed, but they felt somehow a bit generic, as if you could paste them into almost any action movie without losing a beat, and those two were case in point. I did love the dynamics of the tuktuk chase, but as a focus for the characters it fell a tad short.