"Iron Man" should be fun, "Wall-E" touching, and who knows what to expect from the likes of "Hancock", "Wanted," "Caspian" or "Hulk".
Yet when polls and general chatter about this Summer's movies comes up, there are two which stand far above the others in terms of anticipation - "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "The Dark Knight".
Now it looks like both will also stand above the other films in terms of runtime. Hollywood Elsewhere reports that the new Indy clocks in at 140 minutes, easily beating the 127 minute runtime of "Last Crusade" in 1989. Composer John Williams confirms this as well, saying that the film has seven reels at about 20 minutes each.
Early screenings for the film are also being kept tight. The film has been screened only once so far, and the studio gets to see it next week. After that, the only other screenings will be the premiere in Cannes (expected on the 20th) and press screenings in major international territories the week of release - at the earliest only 2-3 nights before the film's release on May 22nd.
Meanwhile early word on "The Dark Knight" is that Chris Nolan's cut clocks in at nearly three hours and it's unlikely to be cut down much further despite the studio's desire for a more manageable 150 minutes. Nolan's "Batman Begins" came in at 140 minutes so a slightly longer runtime for the sequel doesn't seem surprising and the immaculately conceived Devin Faraci over at CHUD thinks that, and I tend to agree, it'll probably come in at about 165 mins.
Responses to the articles have been interesting in that many seem surprisingly concerned about the Indy runtime, yet have absolutely no problem with a three-hour Batman. Very early buzz on Indy already warns to 'keep your expectations in check'.
t: Sure you'd miss a minute or two of the movie, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
