Remember when a 2-hour-20-minute film felt like a proper big-screen experience. But now Things have changed quite a bit. These days, 2 hours 40 minutes is not even a surprise for a big film. Some are getting close to three hours, and audiences have more or less accepted it.
But here is the strange part. Even after making films this long, some filmmakers still feel they need two parts to tell the story.
Atlee’s Raaka is a good example of where this trend could be heading. The film is being made on a huge scale, and there has been talk of telling the story in two parts. That immediately makes you wonder how big the story has become if nearly three hours of runtime is still not enough.
Of course, some stories genuinely need two films. Nobody can argue with that. But the current trend also raises a concern. Filmmakers today seem to have become very comfortable with adding more material rather than cutting it down to fit it in one part. A few more scenes, a bigger world, more characters, more action and suddenly the film has outgrown one part and immidiatly the second part will come onboard.
There was a time when good editing meant knowing what the audience did not need to see. But now, with big stars and huge budgets involved, there seems to be less pressure to leave anything out.
A 2-hour-40-minute film can work beautifully if the content keeps moving. But stretching a story simply because the canvas is big will test even a loyal audience.
And if one story becomes two films, the commitment doubles too. The audience has to buy another ticket, wait for another release and remember everything from the first part.
Big stories are great. Long films are fine. But not every story needs to become an epic just because the budget is huge.
