"Lord of the Rings" Running Time Revealed

[James Harvey]

"The Fellowship of the Ring" will clock in at an epic 2 hours and 58 minutes, about 15 minutes longer than the early word that exhibitors were getting and shuttering rumblings that New Line Cinema was trying to make Peter Jackson pare it down to a more commercially viable length. So - any comments on the running time? Personally - I could easily sit through it.

[Maxie Zeus]

Oh, yeah!

Heck, I'd sit thru a 6 hour FotR, if it meant getting Tom Bombadil and the Old Forest and the Barrow Downs in.

[Calhoun07]

WOW! Remind me not to drink any liquids 24 hours before I go and see this movie!

[Joker85]

YAY!! That means it'll fit more stuff in and be better, unlike Battlefield Earth( 2 hrs.) which just sucked!!

[Failure]

Great! I know those 3 hours are gonna fly by, so they can make it as long as they want.

[Vigo Sprax]

I really don't mind long movies, I often enjoy them. On Oliver Stone's DVD commentary for the film JFK (Another long movie) he mentions that he and other directors wish they could bring back intermission to allow for longer films.

[Calhoun07]

YEAH! The days of an intermission! I think it would be very nice! Like I was saying earlier, I won't drink any liquids for quite sometime before I see a long movie like this. An intermission would allow for things like nature calling, and give people a nice break. Why can't they bring that back?

[The Mad Hatter]

Nice... very nice...

[Bird Boy]

cool...but even with paddes seats, my butt gets numb after a hour long movie..ppl will probably think I have to go to the bathroom cuz I shift so much...lol.

-BB

[Jowy Blight]

Good, that means they can fit more of it in.

[James Harvey]

I can totally sit through this movie. If I can sit through the hell that was 'Titanic', I can sit through this - which I know I'll enjoy much, much more!!

[Stupendous Man]

Ive often heard people complain about movies bieng tooo long.
I even heard someone complain about the Harry Potter movie
bieng a whopping 2 and a half hours.

I never understand this complaint.

The only time a movies length should be an issue is if it
sucks. Or when they take a kernal of a good idea and
try to stretch a thin plot into an hour and a half.

But if youve got a good story, entertaining characters ..
I never want the movie to end .

With a movie like fellowship of the ring , that has so much
text and depth behind one wonders if 3 hours is even
enough.

But Im pleased that theyve decided to go to 3 hrs and I hope they
stick with it.

In todays market its all about filling seats ...and with a 3 hour
movie it means that they can only have half as many showings
as a movie that an hour and a half long.

I dont agree with this mind you .. but thats how Hollywood Studios see it. Get em in and get em out of the theatre.

Thats why todays movies are so much shorter than those in
the past. Although its a refreshing trend as far as im concerned
that some directors are fighting to keep there films intact.
As long as Kevin Costners not directing Ill happilly sit through
a four hour movie ... more bang for my buck.

I cant wait to see Lord of the Rings ... I hope their adaptation is
as faithfull as Harry Potters was.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by The Spirit
But if youve got a good story, entertaining characters .. I never want the movie to end .

Exactly!

How long should a movie be? Long enough to tell a good story.

[James Harvey]

I agree wit ya, Maxie! There are some movies that are so enjoyable that you don't want to end - no matter how long the time is. LOTR could be one of those movies...

[The Mad Hatter]

Some movies need to be short, some movies need to be long. LotR I would certainly put in the latter category...

[Maxie Zeus]

You know, if the other two clock in at the same length, we're looking at a 9 hour movie (thereabouts).

:eek: You know what would be sweet?! (Man, I hope they do this.) When the third one comes out in 2003, put the other 2 in release and have them playing sequentially at the theater with about a 15 minute break between show times. You know: FotR at 11:00am, TT at 2:15pm and RotK at 5:30pm. Spend the whole day with LotR, with 2 intermissions.

Heck, if FotR is a big enuf hit, maybe they could film "The Hobbit" in the meantime and in 2004 you could fill a 12 period with cinematic Tolkien.

[Failure]

Can you imagine sitting in a theater for 9 hours of film plus say an hour of intermissions? Wow, you'd be a stinking vegetable afterwards! Sad part is I'd sit through it, or at least I know I'll be sitting and watching all the movies back to back to back on my tv one day when they're released. Actually, I wouldnt be surprised if they tried that 9 hour thing in some of those more "cultured" theaters where limited releases show.

[Maxie Zeus]

Originally posted by Failure
Can you imagine sitting in a theater for 9 hours of film plus say an hour of intermissions? Wow, you'd be a stinking vegetable afterwards!

I've done it. Last July 2 friends and I hit "Shrek," "A.I." and "The Mummy Returns" (none of which we'd seen yet) in a single day. Granted, there was about a 45 minute hiatus between Shrek and AI, and a break for dinner between AI and MR, but when the movies are that disparate in style and subject you need longer breaks. The LotR films should segue into each other.

Now, if I could do that with those 3 (and I wound up hating 2 of them), I think I could do it with LotR. :D

[Kathy Kane]

WOW!
that's pretty long but when I saw Harry Potter it didn't seem to long even though I had heard that it was 2 and half hours long.

[James Harvey]

Actually, the director wants the entire saga to equal up to 10 hours, even though each installment will only be 30 minutes. Where will this extra 70 or so come from? Why - the DVD of course! Once all three movies are released, New Line plans to release a lavish box set, with alot of new scenes on each disc to equal up to ten hours, overall, for the saga. This is why I'm waiting to buy the DVDs...

[The Mad Hatter]

Playing all the movies in a row could happen... I remember that when the Back to the Future trilogy was finished, the three flicks were spliced together into one big movie for a few special presentations.

[James Harvey]

Really? Did networks do that? (BTW - The Back tot he Future Box Set hits DVD Summer 2002) I can really see a 4 disc box set. 1 disc per movie, plus one for more extras. I'd like it to resemble the recent DIE HARD trilogy set - now that would be very nice. I just hope we don't get snapper cases.

But I could also sit through a 200 minute movie...

[The Mad Hatter]

It wasn't on the networks... I think it just showed in a few theaters, as a way of premiering the third one (if memory serves). Pretty neat idea, actually.

[Jimmy Kustes]

All I know is Harry Potter needs to be longer. I don't care if the movie patrons and projector runner don't want to sit through a seven hour movie, I do! And that's all that matters! :D

Before I see Lord of the Rings, I need to pick up that trilogy book that one of the customers bought in my line. I never read the books so I asked him about it and it has all three stories in it! I didn't even know they made three stories!

The 4th Harry Potter movie needs to be three seperate movies. Fitting it into 3 hours is inexcusable.

[Maxie Zeus]

Well, it's not "three stories." The Lord of the Rings is one novel that happens to be chopped into three sections. That is, it's like "Secret Origins" (a 3-part story) and not a group of 3 independent stories (like the Indiana Jones movies).

The 3-part structure was never Tolkien's design, but a publisher's decision. The postwar shortages in Britain made it impractical to print it up in one volume, and the publisher was concerned that browsers would be less daunted by 3 short books than one big one. So if you've picked up the one-volume edition that's lately been printed up, you are actually getting it as Tolkien would have preferred. :)

[James Harvey]

Really? Interesting. I've been considering pickin gup the books and reading them before the movie comes out. I've neevr read the books before so i thought it would be interesting to know what I'm getting into, story wise.