Just read some headlines (and one article) stating that the movie's running time is somewhere around 95 minutes. Is this confirmed? If so, how do people feel about it? If it really is 95 minutes, then it was done for economic reasons, in my opinion.
Running time
- Thread starter Rrty
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Someone pointed out to me that Stand By Me clocked in at 89 minutes. You can do a lot in an hour and a half.
Bev, thanks for the reply. I do agree to some extent, but in all honesty, I think that comparison is a bit apple/orange since the source material was based on a novella (it is a great movie, though, very faithful to the printed story). I don't mind short movies -- in fact, I may have this wrong, but I think Sam Raimi once said the best movie is something like 85 minutes long, maybe even shorter, and you go in and have fun and then forget it, something like that anyway -- but given what you know about the industry, don't you assume the running time was made with risk management in mind? Supposedly the budget is $60 million. I am for movie budgets going down, but I just think this particular investment level, the theoretical start of a potential franchise, is strange. I'll say this though: this budget may be a stroke of genius and a new way of doing things if it succeeds.
Guess we'll have to wait for a 'director's cut' on bluray/dvd......
It seems short, I was expecting around two hours. But it seems mostly the Jake/New York part, which without Eddie, Susannah and Oy, doesn't have to take too long. I think also it means we won't see much of Roland's past (characters like Cort, Roland's parents, Alain, Cuthbert aren't on the cast list, only Susan Delgado is).
I think 90 minutes is okay for a film like Stand by Me, but with something like this which is based on longer books a longer running time would have been preferable. I think there will be a big change of tempo, the movie seems much more concentrated on action than on the mythology and characters, but we'll see.
I think 90 minutes is okay for a film like Stand by Me, but with something like this which is based on longer books a longer running time would have been preferable. I think there will be a big change of tempo, the movie seems much more concentrated on action than on the mythology and characters, but we'll see.
Ron Howard and Akiva Goldsman's original concept was to reserve the sweeping drama for the big screen and the more intimate, character-based stuff for the interleaving television series, the first of which would focus on the Wizard & Glass story.
It's tough to do epic in a hour and a half. Great length for a horror film though.
...the running time for an Opus of this sort would be overwhelming....hell, 90 minutes would barely get you a decent synopsis....
Ideally, The Gunslinger movie should have been filmed in five segments, corresponding to the five parts which comprise the novel. Not an easy task, and no doubt this would have required a genius to pull it off. Then, the rest of the books could have been filmed as a trilogy. I would have cast Oscar winner Christian Bale to play Roland, and Peter Jackson to direct.
Alas, I am only a small voice crying in the wilderness.
Alas, I am only a small voice crying in the wilderness.
SK compared the running time to the first book on Twitter, which also wasn't long. But I think the first book isn't long, because they are short stories, more episodic. And it isn't the first book that's being filmed first, it's the third.
Anyway, we'll have to see. It seems with a running time like this it would be more of an introductory movie, laying the basic foundation of the story and introducing the characters, but only a start of the whole saga.
Anyway, we'll have to see. It seems with a running time like this it would be more of an introductory movie, laying the basic foundation of the story and introducing the characters, but only a start of the whole saga.
If it's only 90 minutes it's looking more and more appealing to me. I can't take anything over 2 hours, personally. I just don't have the patience or attention span.
Considering the length of SK's novels, it seems amazing that you can read books that long, but two hours of movie is too much... They're different media of course, but still...
What may make the Dark Tower books shorter as films, is there is quite a lot of dialogue in the books - the first one perhaps not, but the later ones. It seems to me there is more dialogue than in the average King book. I may be wrong, but there seems so much discussion between Roland and the members of the Ka-Tet. It seems almost like he was figuring out the story through the dialogue - so much is about what is happening and what the explanation is for certain events or phenomena, often regarding time and place of course.
For a tv-series this would be okay, but as a film they would rather show things than have long discussions about them.
i won't be able to make a judgment until i see it. i would prefer it to be longer, but they're doing it so differently from what's in the books that it's a hard call to make
....that line was custom made for a.......TWSS!!!!!!......
really the whole first half was a set up on re-read. a universal problem really.
Look on the bright side--if the movie blows, that's less time we have to spend captive in the theater. 
I can read a book in the comfort of my home and in pieces over a period of time that I decide on. Sitting in an uncomfortable theater with people constantly texting on their phones for over two hours is not my idea of a good time. Plus, I don't like many SK adaptations to begin with. I think his books are wonderful but for me they don't translate well to a visual medium.
....I grok this....I may miss the visual impact of the large screen images, but it keeps me from flying into a homicidal rage because somebody left the bag of idiots open...
But how about dvd's? You can pause them when you like, watch them from your comfortable chair. I prefer watching blu-ray/dvd to the cinema, but on occasion a film makes me so curious that I go to the cinema. I used to go to the cinema a lot more, but now it's just a couple of times a year. Now I go mostly for things like Bond, Star Wars. I also went to Skull Island this year, because some characters like Kong I feel you HAVE to see on the big screen - and it didn't disappoint. Often in cinemas the sound is just too loud too, but I like the 3D as I don't have that at home (yet). Some films hardly use 3D like Rogue One, but Skull Island used it enough, although they usually use it for smaller things coming out of the screen - I would have liked Kong's arm to reach into the cinema, but it didn't happen.
There are articles on The Dark Tower in British best known (I think) film mag Empire, and in British sf/fantasy/horror magazine SFX, but they are rather short. It seems there is a lot under wraps with this film, they don't want to give a lot away.