How do I decide which new movies to add to the RunPee database?

This is one of the hardest management decisions I have to make for RunPee. It’s hard because I have incomplete information. I can’t know how popular a movie will be before it’s released. Here are the general guidelines I follow when making the decision.

The Ease Choice

If it’s a well-known wide-release movie, then it’s 100% going to be added. Those are the easy ones.

Everything Else

One of the major limitations we have is that both my sister and I, who watch 90% of the movies, live in relatively small towns. I live in Swannano, NC—one of the cities that got flooded in Helene. Sis lives in Morristown, TN. Our local AMC theaters rarely show limited-release movies, and when they do, it will be a week or two after opening in major markets.

One of the major indicators I use is the IMDb popularity index. (Top-right of image above.) I typically add new movies to the database on Wednesdays. If a movie doesn’t break into the top 1,000 by then, I’ll reconsider adding it. Of course, that doesn’t work well for movies that aren’t popular until after they come out, but it’s the main indicator that I have to work with.

Farming Out

There are a few other Peeps—as I call them—who can get Peetimes for movies. A good example of where this comes in handy is for a movie like Poor Things. (Read the review for Poor Things: grade A+) The movie was filled with A-list movie stars, but it wasn’t a wide-release film. Fortunately, one of the Peeps who lives in NYC was available to get Peetimes for it shortly after it opened. It didn’t open here in Asheville until a few weeks later.

Coming Soon: a coming soon feature

I’m working on a new feature in the RunPee app that will let people search IMDb and add a thumbs up indicating that they want to see that movie. If enough people use this feature it will help me gauge which movies are worth adding to the RunPee app and which ones I can skip. This will be extremely useful alongside another feature that I’m adding: language translations. This way if there’s a popular movie releasing, for instance, in Japan I will know ahead of time and can get someone in Japan who can add the Peetimes.

What Time Do We See Movies?

We make every effort to attend the first public showing and get Peetimes added on the opening Thursday for each movie. Thursdays are set aside to get to the theater, watch a movie, and then zip home and add the Peetimes. Occasionally, we have back-to-back movies to watch without enough time in between to add Peetimes for the first movie. I remember that happening with Barbie and Oppenheimer opening on the same day. There was just enough time to see Barbie, then zip over to a different screen and watch Oppenheimer while I added Peetimes for Barbie during the trailers.

There are times, especially with my sister, when we have to put off seeing a movie until Friday. On those occasions, we make every effort to get the Peetimes in ASAP.

Who Sees What Movies?

We have learned that it is hard to do Peetimes for a genre we don’t like. For me, that would be horror movies. I avoid watching any of the typical horror-supernatural movies, but my sister loves them. So Sis does the Peetimes for all the horror movies. Because she’s a fan of the genre she knows what fans want to see and what they don’t mind missing—usually.

As the RunPee founder, I feel responsible for doing the hard job of getting Peetimes for the most popular movies. Fortunately, I love the superhero, action, and science fiction genres, which account for the majority of blockbuster movie.

Unfortunately, neither me or Sis enjoy musicals, so getting Peetimes for those movies is troublesome. If it were up to me, every other song would be a Peetime. But I know that’s not what fans think, so when we get Peetimes for a musical we do our best to keep the songs out of the Peetimes. If we do use a song as a Peetime, we try to make sure the main character doesn’t sing it.

How Many Peetimes Does Each Movie Have?

Most people are surprised to learn that good movies have good Peetimes, and bad movies have bad Peetimes.

Let me explain.

Movies that are poorly edited and frenetically jump from scene to scene are notoriously hard to find good Peetimes for. Remember, the definition of a good Peetime is: a scene, or scenes, that are easily summarized without missing crucial elements of the plot or story. A Peetime may contain vital information to the plot, but if it’s only exposition such as, make sure you cut the blue wire and not the green wire, then that can be in a Peetime. I can easily tell you that information. But if there is something emotional or funny, that is impossible to summarize accurately. We can’t use those scenes as Peetimes.

It turns out really good movies often have good pacing and let scenes unfold from one to another, providing time to stack one or two scenes together into a great Peetime. But poorly edited movies jump from short scene to short scene. To summarize each scene, no matter how short it may be, will add to the length of the synopsis. We try to keep the synopsis at about 100 words so you can read it quickly.

All of this is to say, it depends on the movie—obviously. Our aim is to find the first Peetime in the 15-30 minute range of the start of the movie, and then add another Peetime every thirty minutes until the end. At least that’s the goal. Sometimes movies don’t cooperate. It’s not uncommon for a really good movie to have a few good Peetimes in the first hour, and then the second half of the movie is one crucial scene after another. In that case, we may add an emergency Peetime (Read: What makes a good Peetime?) that, as the name suggests, you can only use as a last resort.