Animated Movies Getting Longer?
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- AV Forum Member
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Animated Movies Getting Longer?
Hi, everyone! I'm new here! I found about this site first through the Animation Addicts podcast and decided to check the forums out as I'm a big an of animation and wanted to find an online community to talk about it with. One thing I've noticed is that it seems like animated movies are a lot longer nowadays than they used to be when I was a kid. It seems like all the older classic Disney movies are around 80 min long and some of the really old Disney movies are even around an hour to 70 min. The earliest Pixar films were also around 80 min but lately it seems like most animated movies are anywhere from 90 min to 1 hr 40 min. I think Cars might be one of the longest American animated movies I've seen. Are kids just less hyperactive these days and more able to pay attention to a longer movie? Have epic long fantasy films like Harry Potter and LOTR made longer movies more accessible to younger kids or something? I know a lot of anime movies can be very long but will we ever see a big three hour epic animated movie made?
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Re: Animated Movies Getting Longer?
Welcome Scar!
Yes, films in general have been getting longer and longer for a good few years now: it used to be that 90 minutes was the norm for whatever form a film may have taken. In the 80s, this seemed to stretch to around an hour forty and, by the 90s and into the 2000s, two hours was an average running time.
We're at about 2:20hr in terms of live-action but animated films have been increasing as well, which I put down to two main factors: number one, I think filmmakers are too self indulgent now and more powerful, so they get their way more easily because they're more in control and less able to edit themselves.
Second, and perhaps a third, the studios don't "get" animated movies, how they are made. Since they can't watch daillies and it comes in through drips and deans, they can't really keep track on things. And then, when they see the result, they can't say "no" to the filmmaker, don't want to throw away millions of dollars cutting completed animation, and figure that with extra length audiences are getting better value (debatable in many cases!).
There *was* a complaint many years ago from audiences that said animated films were top short, hence why some studios started attaching short subjects to their features again, to bolster up the program. Now it seems the movies need to be shortened again!
In terms of seeing an animated epic (in length, not ambition, as there have been plenty of those), I wonder if we would see anything like that. Remember that, at well over two hours in its roadshow version, Fantasia was an epic at the time, but as for a three-hour kind of film? I would perhaps argue that we're getting closer to that with the likes of The Hobbit and such which, while not full animation, here closer to blending the two.
Funny enough, the big film at the moment that mixes both and could arguably be called an animated film, Gravity, is a trim 90 or so minutes!
Yes, films in general have been getting longer and longer for a good few years now: it used to be that 90 minutes was the norm for whatever form a film may have taken. In the 80s, this seemed to stretch to around an hour forty and, by the 90s and into the 2000s, two hours was an average running time.
We're at about 2:20hr in terms of live-action but animated films have been increasing as well, which I put down to two main factors: number one, I think filmmakers are too self indulgent now and more powerful, so they get their way more easily because they're more in control and less able to edit themselves.
Second, and perhaps a third, the studios don't "get" animated movies, how they are made. Since they can't watch daillies and it comes in through drips and deans, they can't really keep track on things. And then, when they see the result, they can't say "no" to the filmmaker, don't want to throw away millions of dollars cutting completed animation, and figure that with extra length audiences are getting better value (debatable in many cases!).
There *was* a complaint many years ago from audiences that said animated films were top short, hence why some studios started attaching short subjects to their features again, to bolster up the program. Now it seems the movies need to be shortened again!
In terms of seeing an animated epic (in length, not ambition, as there have been plenty of those), I wonder if we would see anything like that. Remember that, at well over two hours in its roadshow version, Fantasia was an epic at the time, but as for a three-hour kind of film? I would perhaps argue that we're getting closer to that with the likes of The Hobbit and such which, while not full animation, here closer to blending the two.
Funny enough, the big film at the moment that mixes both and could arguably be called an animated film, Gravity, is a trim 90 or so minutes!
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Re: Animated Movies Getting Longer?
I think the closest we have to a three hour animated movie is Avatar but even that movie mixed in live-action actors and was aimed at an older audience than the family friendly audience. My ideal epic animated film would be if Disney made a three hour animated remake of The Chronicles of Pydrain that stayed closer to the original books than the Black Cauldron film did. I assume Disney must still have the rights to the books? I can enjoy both shorter and longer animated movies but I think the original Cars movie would have been a lot better if it was 30 min shorter.
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Re: Animated Movies Getting Longer?
Avatar and Gravity were both fully animated movies. Stylistically they were supposed to mimic real life, but the same technology used in both is the same stuff used at Disney to make Frozen. Crazy right? I do like how the movies are still relatively tight and the pacing doesn't feel like they stuffed it with extra bits.
I haven't seen Free Birds but that's exactly 90 minutes too. I'm curious how good it was.
Scar: those rights may have expired...?
Don't forget they're also getting incredibly expensive. That's what I love about Despicable Me's series. It isn't hugely expensive but just as good some of the other majors.
I haven't seen Free Birds but that's exactly 90 minutes too. I'm curious how good it was.
Scar: those rights may have expired...?
Don't forget they're also getting incredibly expensive. That's what I love about Despicable Me's series. It isn't hugely expensive but just as good some of the other majors.