According to Variety, the final cut of the hotly anticipated superhero mashup Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice has finally been completed, and its runtime has been announced to the public. This is a matter of some anxiety amongst cinema fans, as most superhero movies tend to be getting longer and longer, and the forthright volume of dizzying action happenstance has been reaching critical levels of incomprehension. Dawn of Justice will stay just on the other side of way-too-long at 151 minutes.
Check Out: New Low-Budget Argentinian Film Plays with DC’s Superhero Characters
Zack Snyder’s previous film in this series, the contested Man of Steel, ran 143 minutes, so the addition of several new characters (Batman, Wonder Woman, several others) is, relatively speaking, only a small amount of additional bloat. Although this is indicative of a trend, and denoted no more bloat than your typical Hollywood action tower. At the very least, it’s going to be shorter than the orgiastic Transformers: Age of Extinction, which ran 165 minutes.
Why are Hollywood action blockbusters so long? One may recall a time when action tentpoles were about 100 minutes, and managed to establish characters and stories in that time. I think, since so many of modern action blockbusters – especially those of the superhero variety – are reliant on interlocking, multi-film story arcs, more elements need to be introduced, and more time is required to do that. As such, no big-budget spectacular would dare step away after a mere 130 minutes. 2-and-a-quarter-hours-plus is becoming the new standard.
Warner Bros.
Of course, the old Ebert adage holds true: No good film is too long, and no bad film is short enough. The length of a movie is not necessarily any sort of mark of quality. But the trends are making themselves increasingly visible. There are so many superhero films that, through advertising and tonal portent, declare themselves to be the Biggest Entertainment Ever. After over a dozen of those, audiences may begin to feel fatigue. This may be one of the reasons Deadpool has been such a hit. It’s casual, funny, not at all serious, and, perhaps most importantly, only runs 108 minutes. Contrast this to Avengers: Age of Ultron (141 minutes), Superman Returns (154 minutes), or The Dark Knight Rises (164 minutes).
I put it to you: Can a major Hollywood studio make a big-budget superhero flick, but tell a simpler story that can be wrapped up in 100 minutes? Most would agree the answer is no. A better question: Would you, an an audience member, be satisfied with a major superhero team-up movie that was only 100 minutes? Even if it was really, really good? I think studios and audiences are locked into a certain set of expectations by now, and shorter blockbusters are going to be a long time in the coming.
Unless Deadpool changes things.
Top Image: Warner Bros.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and the co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. He also contributes to Legion of Leia and to Blumhouse. You can follow him on “The Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
