If you’re a fan of the John Wick franchise, or if you want to take a peek behind the curtain and see how movies get made, then I recommend watching the Netflix show Wick is Pain. (Netflix, free with subscription | YouTube Rental $5.99)
The behind-the-scenes look into the Wick universe provides a 2-hour 6-minute deep dive into the challenges and unexpected success of the franchise. There is a combination of footage shot behind the scenes during the filming, starting with the very first movie, and all the way up to John Wick: Chapter 4. Plus current interviews with the cast and crew reflecting in their journey.
The documentary goes all the way back to director Chad Stahelski’s early career, which jumped from kickboxing to stunt work in the 90s, and how he eventually became the stunt double for Keanu Reeves for the Matrix films. Their long-lasting friendship resulted in the first opportunity for Chad Stahelski to jump from stunts to behind the camera and gave Keanu Reeves the much-needed career comeback after a series of less-than-stellar movies.
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After watching this, you’re going to want to rewatch the John Wick movies all over again.
Creator and developer of the RunPee app. When something doesn’t work right in the app it’s pretty much his fault. 🙂
Aspiring author. Would like to finish his “Zombie Revelations” trilogy if he could break away for working on RunPee and the cottage he’s building for RunPee Mom.
I’m a student at Rutgers University and wondering if you’d be willing to help me on a project. I’m making a persuasive speech titled If I Can Skip It, Cut It… it’s basically saying runtimes are too long and there is too much filler these days. It’s effecting the viewer experience negatively.
Hi Brian,
Interesting topic. Here are a few posts that I’ve added on the subject of long movies:
https://runpee.com/people-complain-about-long-movies-but-they-get-the-best-ratings/
https://runpee.com/holy-bladder-bursters-batman-your-new-film-is-almost-3-hours-long/
There’s another post, somewhere on RunPee, where I’ve discovered that movies aren’t really getting longer. The majority of movies still run in the 100-120 minute range, but there are years where there are more super long movies of 140 minutes or more.
I’ve watched a LOT of movies. I think you’re right about some movies being too long and adding filler scenes. But I notice that more for short movies that only have 60-80 minutes of actual story to tell, but they know that’s too short so there’s “padding” added to bring it up to a respectable 90 minutes or so. But there are also a lot of 100 minute movies that could have been much better if more were added. Sometimes character development isn’t fully explored, or the rules in the universe are given through exposition instead of shown to viewer.
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a problem with too much padding, but with understanding the foundational principles of storytelling.
Good luck with your speech! Go Scarlet Knights!!!
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