Where is the limit of the average film length of 130 minutes？

Special feature of 1905 film network Although the Spring Festival holiday has passed, the popularity of "the longest festival in history" continues.

It’s just that the "longest" here is not simply used to describe the "stamina" of the Spring Festival in 2023. From the objective data, these films this year have greatly improved the average data in the past in terms of single length:

At present, it still leads the single-day box office list, and the duration of a single film reaches 173 minutes, which not only increases by 48 minutes compared with the previous film, but also becomes the longest film in the same period in recent years. No wonder the most popular and practical movie guide will be: If you must go to the bathroom, peeling apples by Liu Peiqiang is your only chance.

In the same period, the film length reached 159 minutes and 128 minutes respectively, which also made the average time of six films in the Spring Festival in 2023 reach 129.5 minutes, an increase of more than 20 minutes compared with 2022.

The recent "super-long" new films are not limited to them: those who won the New Year’s Eve in 2022 and the New Year’s Day in 2023 have a film length of 192 minutes; Marvel Comics’s works, which were recently painted, are also 161 minutes long.

When more and more "feature films" appear, does the audience gradually "adapt well"? Will the growth of film length have an impact on the box office and the number of people watching movies? Is there a "limit" to the length of the film?

What changes have been brought about by the average film length of 130 minutes?

In 2023, the box office of the Spring Festival file finally closed at over 6.75 billion, up by over 10% year-on-year, and the number of people watching movies was also 129 million. Correspondingly, the total number of screenings decreased: in 2022, the total number of screenings during the Spring Festival period reached 3.14 million, while this year, this figure was 2.665 million.

"This is the most intuitive impact." Yu Chao, deputy general manager of Capital Cinema, introduced in an interview with 1905 Film Network that as one of the most important schedules in a year, all cinemas will make good preparations in advance during the Spring Festival, and strive to make full use of business hours to maximize the number of screenings with the most reasonable screening and inter-field time.

"Maximizing the number of times means an increase in reception capacity and total reception, just like the turnover rate of restaurants." The concentrated appearance of "super-long" films in the prime time this year has indeed brought greater pressure and fierce competition to the film arrangement of cinemas.

According to the normal business hours of most cinemas, the number of 2-hour (inclusive) long films that can be shown in a single hall in a day is about 6-7. "For films that are nearly three hours, it may be four in a day, and some cinemas may be able to arrange five." Manager Yu gave us an example to calculate: "If the number of films for two hours or more is large, it will definitely affect the arrangement of the final total number of films.

For cinemas, how to fully display goods with limited shelves and attract more viewers to buy tickets is always the first problem to be considered. Chen Min, Shanghai regional manager of King UA Film City, revealed that during the Spring Festival, "super-long" films mainly brought the pressure of film arrangement and turnover. In the case of non-hot schedule and a small number of films in the same period, the film length of 3 hours+and otherwise will not bring much impact.

However, the increase in the length of a single film in the Spring Festival this year and the decrease in the number of screenings have not worried the cinema too much. On the one hand, through market adjustment, the ticket price has been correspondingly increased. On the other hand, the high topic and high quality of the film in the Spring Festival just passed also led to the increase in the number of people watching movies. According to the public data of the ticketing platform, the total number of people watching movies in 2023 increased by 13% year-on-year, and the average number of people watching movies per game increased by over 30%. This change has also successfully filled the impact of the reduction in the number of games.

Yu Chao said that from the current point of view, the film "super long" has not yet formed a mainstream trend. At the same time, the "super-long" works in each schedule are usually "head films" with higher quality and attention, and the limited screening does not conflict with the ticket demand of most viewers. This is why the overall box office data of this year’s Spring Festival file has not been affected too much.

"At the same time, the audience will only choose one film. Maybe some films are short and can be screened more times, but their content is not as attractive as long films. Even if there is room for more times, it is meaningless. (After all) The number of people watching movies and the attendance rate will be different."

2 hours, 3 hours … Is there a "limit" to the audience’s choice of watching movies?

In order to understand the audience’s attitude towards "super-long" films, a few days ago we also launched a vote on the official blog of the 1905 film network. Among the netizens who voted, nearly 20% said that the three-hour film is their "limit". If the film length continues to increase, they may have concerns when purchasing tickets, or need to set a "intermission" time; 12% of the audience think that the length of cinema films can be further compressed, for example, within 120 minutes is more suitable.

The vast majority of the audience surveyed said that they don’t mind the length of the film, but the premise is that the content of the film is excellent and the theme is attractive enough.

In the past, movies were mostly about 120 minutes long, partly because of the limitation of "film" media, and psychological tests have shown that movies about 2 hours can concentrate the audience’s attention more. But now, with the development of the film industry, digital media has solved the limitation of film length, and the audience’s habit of watching movies has gradually developed, which has further helped filmmakers to release their creative "space" to some extent.

Fan Xiao Wei watched Wandering Earth 2 and Unknown in the film length TOP3 during the Spring Festival this year. She also bought tickets for Avatar 2 and Panther 2 for the first time. "It is true that the first reaction will be a little’ shrinking’ when you see the length of about 180 minutes, but if you want to watch a movie or a big IP, you will definitely go to see it in the end, but the decision process may be much longer than the normal movie of about 120 minutes, because it feels that watching a movie of about 180 minutes is basically full this day, and you need to make good arrangements." She said frankly.

However, Xiao Wei also said that in fact, the "entanglement" of the three-hour movie only exists in the step of choosing the number of times before watching the movie. "As long as the movie is exciting enough when it really looks, it will not feel that the length of 180 is very difficult."

Fans have similar ideas one by one. During the Spring Festival, she watched the films Wandering Earth 2 and Man Jiang Hong. Although the two films were considerable in length, the excellent special effects of the former and the reversed plot setting of the latter made her feel that "time passed quickly". However, watching Panther 2 after the Spring Festival was a bit disappointing: "Actually, it’s not as long as Wandering Earth 2, but I secretly brushed my mobile phone many times."

However, I think that three hours or so may be the "threshold" for many people to watch movies. "If it is four hours, I may feel too long when I hear this number."

In this regard, Chen Min, Shanghai regional manager of King UA Film City, revealed that the cinema also envisaged that the duration of the film would continue to increase, which would open up a plan for the audience to have halftime.

Yu Chao, deputy general manager of the Capital Cinema, believes that with the increase of film length, the pressure will still be more between the film announcement and the producers. "Publishers should consider the greater competition they face and how to better launch the products within the schedule to help the project stand in the cinema."

For the audience, the cinema can also continue to help the audience plan the viewing time earlier by optimizing the film arrangement and pre-sale: "For example, at present, the pre-sale of our ticketing platform will be many days in advance, and now the ticketing platform also indicates the start and end time of the film, which can help the audience make follow-up arrangements."

The length of the film will not affect the choice of the audience. In this multi-party dialogue, we finally gained this mainstream view. I believe that in the future, good content can continue to break the "limit".