I went to see Supergirl earlier this week, and contrary to what you may have heard from some haters, it’s a fun ride. It’s not exactly The Dark Knight or even Iron Man 1, but it’s a nice time at the movies. It’s got some enjoyable action sequences, a lot of laughs, good performances from likeable co-stars Milly Alcock and Jason Momoa in particular, and most importantly for this article, a breezy little runtime of one hour and forty-seven minutes.
To be clear, I’m not here to advocate that one hour and forty-seven minutes is a scientifically proven perfect runtime for every movie. It’s not. It’s not even the perfect runtime for every superhero movie. What I am here to zealously advocate for, however, is a movie being the right length for its tone, subject matter and the story it’s trying to tell. That’s not something every so-called event film gets, and it’s something DC, in particular, has often struggled with.
The History Of DC Runtimes
Here are the runtimes for every major, non-animated DC release since Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy concluded. Supergirl (1 hour, 47 minutes), Superman (2 hours, 9 minutes), Joker 2 (2 hours, 18 minutes), Aquaman 2 (2 hours, 4 minutes), Blue Beetle (2 hours, 7 minutes), The Flash (2 hours, 24 minutes), Shazam 2 (2 hours, 10 minutes), Black Adam (2 hours, 5 minutes), The Batman (2 hours, 56 minutes), The Suicide Squad (2 hours, 12 minutes), The Snyder Cut (4 hours, 2 minutes), Wonder Woman 1984 (2 hours, 31 minutes), Birds Of Prey (1 hour, 49 minutes), Joker 1 (2 hours, 2 minutes), Shazam 1 (2 hours, 12 minutes) Aquaman 1 (2 hours, 23 minutes), Justice League (2 hours), Wonder Woman (2 hours, 21 minutes), the other Suicide Squad (2 hours, 3 minutes), Batman V Superman (2 hours, 31 minutes) and Man Of Steel (2 hours, 23 minutes).
There are definitely some bangers on the above list. Joker 1 is obviously great. The Batman, Wonder Woman 1 and several others are also strong movies. Quite a few more are pretty solid, but so many others are flat out just not that enjoyable to watch because they drag and get boring. Wonder Woman 1984 has a fun little throwback vibe for a little while, but it does not even come close to sustaining that over more than two and a half hours. I swear Man Of Steel features like ten or fifteen entire minutes of characters being thrown into different buildings. At least a half dozen of these movies are a slog to get through, but they may have been a lot more enjoyable if they cut 20 or 30 minutes out.
It’s wild that only two of the movies on the above list are under two hours. I’m definitely not arguing that Supergirl and Birds Of Prey are the best two films on the list. Birds Of Prey has some issues, and Supergirl is definitely not as good as at least the first three titles I mentioned. That being said, they’re more enjoyable than a lot of the stuff on the list because they get in and they get out. They don’t need more time to stretch out the story; so, they leave the extra bits on the cutting room floor. They were edited with a sense of pace and purpose in mind.
A Movie Should Be As Long As It Needs To Be
Maybe it’s because movie tickets have gotten really expensive. Maybe it’s because there’s more to watch at home via streaming services than ever before. Maybe it’s because our expectations have just collectively changed. Whatever the reason, there’s this prevailing idea right now that only certain movies are worth seeing in theaters, and if we actually go see those in theaters, we better get enough value for our money. The thing is, though, the value that’s most important to everyone is the movie being good or at least fun to watch.
And the thing about good movies is that there’s no inherent correct runtime. Each individual movie should be as long as the movie needs to be, which is sometimes under ninety minutes and sometimes three hours. That might sound stupidly obvious, but a lot of so-called event films, and especially superhero films, get stuck on this idea that they need to be long so they’ll feel epic and important. But not every superhero movie necessarily needs to feel epic. Some of them need to be honest that the stakes just aren’t that high.
For every assemble-the-team-style narrative like in Avengers 1 or creatively artsy and well-made prestige piece like Batman Begins, there are a half dozen that just want to provide a nice escape. They’re just trying to tell a relatively basic story, hit us with a couple of big action moments, offer a few laughs and send us on our way. Those movies in particular need to have a runtime that’s proportional to their momentum. If they can maintain the energy, excitement and laughs for two hours, then they should be two hours. If they start running out of steam after an hour and a half, then they should trim the fat.
I’ve probably been to the movies close to a thousand times in my life, and I’ve never watched a bad movie and thought, well, at least it was really long, so I got my money’s worth. Has anyone ever thought that in the history of going to the movies? The point of watching a movie is to be entertained, and everyone on Earth and Krypton would rather watch good content for an hour and forty-five minutes than bad content for two and a half hours. Shoutout to Supergirl for remembering that.
