Hey again, how are you doing? 

Today I want to share with you this random though I had about movies - is there a connection between how long a movie is, and is success rate?

The way I see it - hell yeah.  

Quick disclaimer: I did not do a proper research before writing this, nor am I aware of any statistics if any exist (and I'm sure they do). This is as random as it gets.

I think this phenomenon shines brightest in the three-hour-long movies league. Take any movie that comes to mind (Gone with the wind, Titanic, Avatar, The Godfather, LOTR, Avengers: Endgame etc.) and think about how big they became? 

The answer is - HUGE. they became immediate cult pieces. 

And why is that?

While brainstorming for possible explanations, I came up with three possible reasons, all intertwined. 

1. "Board Approved" - every movie has it's budget, and as we all know every minute of it costs money. Since scripts are like startups in the sense they need investors in order to progress, logic suggests that the the longer the script the more budget it will require and thus only stories that managed to convince even the harshest critique, will be approved. Moreover, production companies have a tendency of "modifying" scripts from they're initial draft to it's marketable version, and so only a story that has a great chance of selling would get approved for a three hour long movie. Now what all of that means for us is that any movie that made it to the three hour long mark, had passed through a vigorous elimination and refinement process, and like a high quality drink has minimum chance of being considered "bad" by any fan of it's genre.   

2. The Details - what would convince even the harshest critique? I say minimum plot holes, decent character development, no sense of "hit and miss" with the plot, as the plot covers all it's subject material. I won't say all three hour long movies (or any movies for that matter) get all these done in good quality, but as a result of the time they have they do manage to get to them all in some way. Unlike a major portion of all other movies out there, who tend to span from "really bad" to "amazing" with a large variance. 

3. It Take's a Book - if you think about it for a second you would realize that most three-hour-long movies are based on books. This is where both point one and two combine as a book turned into movie is usually one which raised interest among the public, even more so with longer movies. Almost any long movie I can think about was based on a very big, very detailed script written by someone who had both the time and the will to put their heart into it (the author). That means it has both details and a coherent plot progression, but also a profit margin (that's implicit), put that together and you get a high-end movie with decent prospects. 

So what do you think, this made sense? 

Maichka