So King Kong opens today to a lot of fanfare… and I’m one of the guys blowing the horn. I just can’t wait to see this film. The only thing I’ve been worried about with Kong is the length. The film is coming in a 187 minutes (3 hours and 7 minutes). That’s a long film considering the original was only about and hour and a half.
You may remember that the studio didn’t want Jackson to go that long… but they eventually agreed to let Jackson do his thing. But what many people may not know is WHY the studio wanted Jackson to make it shorter. It wasn’t because they were afraid people don’t want to sit through a 3 hour film. The Lord of the Rings movies proved people will sit as long as you want them to if the movie is good. So why did the studio want the film shorter?
The answer is simple. I looked at the show times at my local theater today for Kong tonight… I was trying to decide if I should see the early show or the late show. But guess what…. there is only 1 show per screen tonight.
Think about it… King Kong is 3 hours and seven minutes long. Add on top of that the 20 – 25 minutes of trailers and ads… and all of a sudden you’ve got a 3.5 hour screen commitment. If they started a show at 6:30pm… the theater wouldn’t be empty until 10pm! Then a 15 minute turn around time and it’s far too late to start showing a 3.5 hour screen presentation.
What this means is that instead of having 2 shows per night per screen… King Kong can only have 1 showing per night per screen… and THAT will cut into box office numbers… a lot.
Don’t get me wrong… King Kong will still make HUGE dollars. But what the studio knew is that it could have made even more. We’ll see how well it pays off.
Excuse me now… I’m off to get my tickets.
