Update: Deadline has reported that Martin Scorsese has locked his cut of Killers of the Flower Moon, and the runtime isn’t quite as long as was previously rumored. The final runtime of the Apple Original Films drama will be three hours and 26 minutes; still a lengthy watch, but very much under four hours.
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Killers of the Flower Moon is blossoming into becoming Martin Scorsese’s longest film, with a runtime that could be upwards of four hours and 16 minutes.
While the official runtime for Killers of the Flower Moon has yet to be confirmed, it will certainly be one of the most-discussed aspects of the movie, no matter the quality of it. It is set to premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it will screen out of competition. But even Cannes director Thierry Fremaux doesn’t know the official runtime, telling Variety, “I don’t know what the final length is, but let’s say that for me it’s not an issue. All I know is that it’s only five minutes more than Once Upon a Time in America.”
That would make it easy to figure out the runtime for Killers of the Flower Moon in theory, but Sergio Leone’s epic gangster film has three different cuts ranging from the butchered 139-minute U.S. theatrical release to the extended cut, which hits 251 minutes. If that’s the version to go off of, that puts Killers of the Flower Moon at four hours and 16 minutes. Other sources have put it at a breezy three hours and 54 minutes…Either way, it would be one of the longest non-documentary films to ever screen at Cannes.
If confirmed at a 256-minute runtime, Killers of the Flower Moon would easily be Martin Scorsese’s longest narrative feature, beating The Irishman by 47 minutes…and that was a movie released on Netflix over Thanksgiving weekend so people actually had time to watch it! Scorsese has exceeded four hours before, but only through his epic journey through Italian cinema history, My Voyage to Italy, although he had a hand in other epic non-narratives like The Blues and The Concert for New York City.
After Killers of the Flower Moon makes its world premiere, it will hit limited screens on October 6th, go wide two weeks later and then have an undetermined Apple+ streaming debut later on.
How do you feel about Killers of the Flower Moon having a runtime that exceeds four hours? Would such a length keep you from seeing it in one sitting? Let us know in the comments section below!
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