Hey Treyhoss and Marakanetz...don't get me wrong, I love the film. I love everything about it. It's one of my favorite movies ever, but it's not the type of movie that usually appeals to a mass audience. It's way too subtle, somewhat depressing, and has an open ending...those are usually things that frighten major studios. I'm not saying that the Hollywood executives are right in their thinking that shorter is better, but it's a fact. There have been hundreds of movies that directors were forced to chop for every successful long movie that the two of you mentioned, and none of the movies you mentioned were four hours long. Sure...Titanic, GWTW, Godfather, Lord Of THe Rings, Lawrence of Arabia, and Ben Hur, THe Ten Commandments, etc. are all closer to three hours long and they all did well (though really...most of them are more than thirty years old, and people's attention spans have changed a great deal in the past few decades). And since you're mentioning long successful films, don't forget some long films that weren't huge (as far as the studios profits were concerned, anyway)...Magnolia, Malcolm X (both great), and then there was a little film called Heaven's Gate. That may have been four hours long, but I don't know because no one ever saw it. :-) I don't know about the two of you, but I know several people who refused to see Titanic or Lord of The Rings in a theater because of the length...they decided to wait for them to come to home video, so they could watch them from the comfort of their own couch and pause whenever they felt like it. I can't comprehend that sort of thinking, but it's out there. As far as the studios go, they make most of the money from any theatrical release in the first few weeks. Their contracts with the theaters are set up so that the theaters percentage from the ticket sales increases every week that the movie plays. The first few weeks the studios get most of the money and the theaters make the majority of their profits from concessions. The longer a movie runs, the higher the percentage a theater will make. The theaters make the majority of the profits on any movie that runs for months on end. Knowing that, it does make sense that Hollywood would want every opening to be as huge as possible and yes...the length of a film does affect that profit in many cases. A 3 or 4 hour movie means 2-4 showings per day instead of 4-8, so their box office take is automatically cut by 50% (not taking the quality or popularity of the film into account). When studios release a long film, they need it to do well commercially. I think you'll agree that most of the above mentioned movies were heavily backed by the studios and most had a huge amount of pre-release advertising. That approach may very well have worked with Once Upon A Time in America, but...right or wrong...the studios obviously didn't think they would get a good return on their investment, so they chopped it and gave it a half-assed release. I'm just happy that someone decided to release the original, uncut film on video...that doesn't always happen.
