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Have you noticed how movies are getting longer? (lemmy.film)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by chickenwing@lemmy.film to c/moviesandtv@lemmy.film

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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.

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[–] greybeard@lemmy.one 11 points 1 year ago

One thing people probably aren't considering is tapes. They had a literal length to them. I remember Titanic was a 2 tape set because it was so long. That meant, movies wanted to meaningfully hit the home market, they had to be short enough to fit on one tape, including any preroll advertisements the studio wanted the squeeze in.

DVDs helped a little, but they took were constrained, and were trying to pack in additional features while they were at it.

Now all bets are off in the home market. Even TV shows have started changing to match the format. Streaming first shows are often variable length per episode. Rather than try to fit a specific size, they run until the story is told, like a movie.