re: Matt Reeves 'The Batman' has a runtime of 2 hours and 55 mins

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wish they’d have separate showings for the lardasses that can’t go a film runtime without stuffing their gobs with overpriced, over salted, over buttered, nauseating movie popcorn and their straw splurging sodas. I want to listen to films and watch them. Not listen to your eating.

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I exaggerate the point about concessions to drive home a larger point about the psychology of runtime.

There’s actually some research on audience preferences for certain genres:

Comedy: most people prefer 90 minutes
Action: 2 hours
Drama: 2 hours - 3 hours
Fantasy epics: 3-4 hours.

Batman, to me should feel like a 2 hour movie. The 1989 movie had it down to a science. Joker falls into the vat at 30 minutes. Museum scene at 1 hour. Batman opens the vault and dons the Batsuit to attack Axis chemicals at 90 minutes. Epic final shot of Batman overlooking city at roughly 2 hours.

Writers are not the only creative professionals who have to “kill their darlings.” Action movies extending passed the 2 hour mark venture into that area reserved for dramas. And if the trend holds up, it will be a sagging final act with overly wordy expository dialogue that tells instead of shows.

Let’s be honest you don’t like the movie length because you lack self-discipline and may lack the attention span for it.

You can spend 3+ hours watching a football game, but a movie for that length of time is crazy?

The 3 highest grossing movies of all time are Avatar, Endgame, and Titanic. Run times are 162, 181, and 195 minutes. If you do inflation included, it’s Gone with the Wind and that was 221 minutes.

Spider-Man No Way Home was 148 minutes and is currently the 8th highest grossing movie of all time and that’s without the soys on the West Coast, Northeast, and Chicago contributing their normal attendances.

Your problem with the run time is a you problem, not a run time problem.

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Your problem with the run time is a you problem, not a run time problem.

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It could very well be a me problem, but I’ve never had a problem with movie with a genre appropriate runtime. I watch 3 hour dramas all the time. If The Batman is intended to be a drama, then 3 hours might be appropriate. But then it bears asking the question, “Do I want a dramatic Batman movie or do I want a thrilling action-oriented, tightly-edited Batman?” If that’s the choice, then I’d rather have the latter.