Hollywood’s Extra-Long Movies Spark a Debate: Is It Time for an Intermission?
Moviegoers face new dilemmas as runtimes top three hours
By Joseph Pisani and and Suryatapa Bhattacharya
Movies are getting longer, testing even the strongest of bladders.
Mar Luque, 22, said she only made it through Taylor Swift’s nearly three-hour-long concert movie by sipping her soda slowly. “I rushed to the bathroom right after,” she said.
Luque, a student in Córdoba, Spain, said it was worth it. “I’m not missing anything,” she said.
Hollywood has released a string of unusually long movies in recent months. “Oppenheimer,” about the birth of the atomic bomb, ran for exactly three hours, not counting the previews. Then came Martin Scorsese’s latest film, the three-hour-and-26-minute “Killers of the Flower Moon.” The extended runtimes have sparked calls from some moviegoers to bring back intermissions, which disappeared decades ago in the U.S. and U.K.
One of those moviegoers is Gordon Matlock, who said he took two breaks while watching “Killers of the Flower Moon.”