The theater owner has spoken, and Hollywood might not like what she has to say.
Clare Binns, managing director of Picturehouse Cinemas, delivered a blunt message to filmmakers at a recent BAFTA event: if you want your films shown in cinemas, make them shorter. Much shorter.
In an industry where runtime has become a peculiar form of prestige—because apparently nothing says "serious cinema" like a three-hour posterior endurance test—Binns is pushing back on behalf of exhibitors who have to actually, you know, schedule these behemoths.
The business case is straightforward, even if the artistic egos involved are not. A two-hour film can play five times a day. A three-hour epic? Maybe three screenings, four if you're optimistic about turnover time and bladder capacity. That's real money left on the table, especially for mid-budget films that need every screening slot they can get.
Binns' comments arrive at a fascinating inflection point. We've just watched Martin Scorsese deliver a three-and-a-half-hour Killers of the Flower Moon, Christopher Nolan clock in at three hours for Oppenheimer, and countless other directors treat runtime like a virility contest.
But here's the thing: Scorsese and Nolan have earned that indulgence. They've proven they can hold an audience for that duration. The problem is every other director now thinks their story about, I don't know, a troubled graphic designer's journey of self-discovery deserves the same epic treatment.
The theatrical experience is already under siege from streaming services that let you pause for bathroom breaks and scroll through your phone during boring parts. Making audiences commit to three-plus hours in an uncomfortable seat for a film that could've told the same story in 110 minutes isn't preserving cinema—it's hastening its decline.
In Hollywood, nobody knows anything—except me, occasionally. And occasionally, a theater owner tells you exactly what's wrong with the current model, if only filmmakers would listen.
