Studios push back on theaters for putting a pee break in Killers Of The Flower Moon

Filmmaking’s ongoing war against the human bladder continues apace this week, as THR reports that studios Apple Original Films and Paramount have pushed back on independent theaters for inserting an unofficial intermission into Martin Scorsese’s new historical epic Killers Of The Flower Moon. And while, on the one hand, it’s hard to fault the studio request that theaters not tamper with Scorsese’s vision by inserting a break he didn’t want in his movie (if nothing else, the precedent it’d set would be decidedly troubling), on the other, the film is 216 minutes, and we have to acknowledge that it can get kind of difficult, ’round about minute 200, to contemplate the ugly banality of evil and greed when half your brain is calculating how many fellow cineastes you’re going to have to shank to get to the toilets as soon as the credits roll.

It’s not clear how many theaters (all of which were reportedly independents, not chain-based)were taking it upon themselves to insert the break. THR talked to people at at least a few different movie houses that have since discontinued the practice, though, after the film’s team reminded them that unauthorized intermissions constituted a violation of the film’s licensing agreements. (One anonymous employee quoted moviegoers who enjoyed the respite, saying, “I wish we would have had it for Oppenheimer.”)

The history of the intermission is a long one, dating back to live theater , but the practice had mostly been phased out in Western film by the middle of the 1960s. (Although Wes Anderson stuck one in this year’s Asteroid City, despite the film only running a spritely 105 minutes.) They’re still a major part of movie-going in a few countries, though, notably India, where most movies have a break built-in, and a number of Hollywood films have one forcibly imposed upon them. Interestingly, it was in a conversation with the Delhi-based Hindustan Times that Scorsese addressed the length issue himself recently, remarking that, “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theatre for 3.5 hours. There are real actors on stage, you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect, give cinema some respect.”