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AvP2’s Running Time

Something I’m curious about and I imagine a lot of people are too. AvP2 co-director Colin Strause commented on the running time of AvP2 on the IMDB Boards.

“You can’t force a time onto a movie, otherwise it will drag. That said, the length of Predator is good for that type of movie, so I’m sure we will be somewhere in that range once we are done editing, but until then we don’t want to be quoted on the length before the edit is locked. It will be as long as it needs to be.”

So, Predator’s length was about 100mins. Sounds about right, though I was hoping for a two hour film. Maybe that was wishful thinking. I guess it’s better than AvP’s length. What was it? Between 85-90 minutes, I think.

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Comments: 42
  1. Elder Predator
    AVP 1 was too short make AVP 2 at least 120 miutes I was very dissapointed at the run time and could watch AVP 1 twice.The Alien Quadriligy and the two Predator films were over 100 minutes make AVP 2 as long
    I explained one of the many reasons FOX prefers to do an AVP movie to an Alien or Predator movie...Our best interests is definitely NOT on their minds... We, as an audience, have become more demanding and the more demanding we become, the more money and brainstorming they need to do in order to please us... One thing's for sure: Fox's brass haven't got a clue to what AVP fans like and want in a movie like this...  Why didn't they pick up Peter Briggs' script? 'because it was too expensive', they said...well, this demonstrates Fox's motivations, doesn't it...? 'make an easy buck without spending a buck'...That is Hollywood's motto for the past decade or so: cowardice plus lack of imagination and laxism... Fox is SERIOUSLY lacking creativity and guts...and Uncle Scrooge all the way...
  3. Trioxide
    It's funny how determined and un-worried Coling and Greg are. I mean, in every post that they make (no matter where), I get the felling that they believe that they are the gods of filmmaking. They think that AvP2 will be flawless and such. These two guys have NEVER made a movie in their entire lives, just music videos. And furthermore, FOX usually has big budget for movies like Star Wars or Die Hard and so on, and yet they only give a nickel to AvP1 and AvP2.    :-\  
    Does Shane Salerno, the co-writer of AVP, sounds like a good writer to you?  I don't think the setting for AVP2 is the right one, unless you want to annihilate Alien continuity...The cast is practically unknown (although that spurs curiosity, doesn't it?)...the directors are making their debut...and we all know that Hollywood's sequilitis fever of late leaves a great deal to be desired...So, i ask, where does your hope come from, when every aspect of this movie leaves a great deal to be desired? Anyone...    :-\  
  5. Predator Schwarzenegger
    Don't really care about running time - a good action film is between 80-100 minutes an average. As long as its good, I really don't care.    :-\  
    That is why they prefered to do AVP and its quickly-put- up sequel to an Alien 5 or Predator 3...they prefer a movie with a lower budget to cover and, with a little luck, surpass their low expectations and the lower expectations of the fans than risk a multidollar budget on an Alien or Predator movie and end up with a deficit...  PS: I apologise for the overlong posts, guys...but this is one of those days we want to explain every opinion we make...sorry again, guys...   :-[  
    so, IMO, i respect every director that manages to make lemonade of the very few lemons they are given...Jim Cameron had the banking Paul did not...Jim Cameron had the opportunity Paul did not...Jim made a sequel to a movie that was very slow-paced and from the '2001' era (slow-paced movies with very little dialogue and static cameras) so he had everything going for him..all he had was explore one of the many doors the first movie opened...Paul had to manage to make a movie that could function as a sequel to Predator II and a prequel to Alien, which, I believe, would be even hard for Jim Cameron in this day and age... IT all depends of the timing a movie premiers...this AVP would rock if it showed up when Aliens premiered...Now, we tend to me more demanding without really knowing what we want to see onscreen...we just have too high expectations for a movie whose only aim is at entertaining...If I want a story-driven, quality-acting, i choose Spielberg's movies, not Sci-fi monster fest... That is why these movies usually premiere in the Summer...and that is another mistake from Fox right there...premiering an already negatively hyped sequel to an AMERICAN box-office failure...and that puzzles me...WHY would Fox do a sequel to a US box-office failure if not for milking the fans out of their money?
    ...I am a very avid fan of both franchises but i recognize the aim of a movie when i see one...If you wanted AVP to be a classic, you needed a less commercial-driven director than Paul Anderson...more like a Ridley Scott, Jim Cameron, etc...The Strause Bros are, from Fox's POV, a risk that may or may not pay up...although if it doesn't pay up, the damage will me much less than a 100 or 200-million dollars' budget film...a budget that any one of these directors would get, for, Paul Anderson was more qualified because of his past experience in games-turned-movies flicks, and the Strause Brothers are making their debut, and unlike David Fiuncher, they did not have a multimillion dollar budget like David had on ALien3 with NO script and with NO sympathy from the brass...
    About the 'bitching and moaning' part, I am only concerned about the franchises, not singular 'pocket universe' movies...I would like so much better an Alien 5 than an AVP and sequels... The mythos of Alien is so much more enticing and richer than a brawl between two alien species... All my concerns revolve around the impact that these AVP flicks will have on these franchises's future, and it doesn't look good...AVP failed, although it recovered on DVD and European market and rightfully so...No matter how arguably good or bad was Paul Anderson's script, I recognize his efforts to make it the best he COULD...He is no Spielberg or Scorsese, nor is AVP comparable to a 'Saving Private Ryan' or 'Departed'...they are two very different styles of filmaking...Having said that, I think I enjoyed AVP more than you guys because i saw it for what it was: an hour and a half of pure entertainment, nothing more, nothing less...
    Xenomorphine,  you are right, although my point was that between AVP coming out and AVP2 starting, there was no time to get a quality script! You said it: for all the processes you mentioned, 2 years (let me remind you that AVP2 is in post-production already) is definitely not enough time to do scripts' studies and enabling them on film! All I 'm saying is that given the quality of the first two Alien movies (I think the good-acceptance of Aliens was due to the fact that Alien was too slow-paced and at times incredibly boring, not necessarily because it was well-made - hell, the VFX were a disgrace, especially the dropship ones. ARRGH!) and the time between movies never were under 4 years...Now, how can a script approved by an already decrepit Fox just under 1 (!) year after the aftermath of AVP's debacle can be anything more than just another example of Fox's creative bankruptcy! Also, you can't expect an AVP movie to match the quality and complexity of an Alien one! One is popcornish, aiming solely at fan-pleasing, the other is quality cinema, or at least, used to be...
  11. Xenomorphine
    RIJ:  The development time between the films was not taken up purely with the writing of a script. That would have been peculiar! It was taken up with deciding if they wanted to even do another film, then deciding on writers, directors and so on. Each of those films had several different drafts of each script and most of them even had several entirely diferent stories. 'Alien 3' is a prime example of that, where they went through a great deal of writers and a multitude of stories.  If you are given a script to do and know the general idea to work with, it shoudl be able to be done in just a few days. If you work incredibly hard and are inspired, it could even be done in one, depending on the subject material. They then get sent to other people and then they, most of the time, contribute to that material and do their own drafts of it.
    Theres no way AVP2 can be worse than Pauls take on the first installment! If it turns out to be worse, then atleast we can enjoy the bitching and crying from all the fans, and especially see how in a moment all the fans went from ass kissing the brothers to now hating them forever.  We are the all singing all dancing crap of the world lol   :D  
    Let me clarify my Shane Salerno' POV: the Alien movies' chronology was 1979-1986-1992-1997, right? THey had at the minimum, 5 years inbetween one and another...The Pred ones: 1986-1990...4 years... So, why would a movie done in less than a year, working on a script written for no more than a year, be any good or as good as those that preceded it? Make no mistake...this AVP is a sequel that is aiming solely at our pockets, just making efforts to give action sequences to numb the Aliens' fans and appealing to the mainstream horror spectators by amplifying the human drama...AICN's review warns about this...
    AVP2 will not bring the franchise back for this reason: when you want to retrace your steps and correct the wrong ones, you don't choose a script that took less than a year to completion! Shane Salerno's first draft was already done by the end of 2005, a few months after AVP hit the streets! So, everything about AVP2 seems rushed and aiming at milking the few remaining drops of this cow called 'Alienpredator', making an easy buck before it dies forever... Sigourney was already too old when she did Alien Resurrection and 10 years later, she is far too old to be back and at'em!
  15. SiL
    You say 'action-packed' and Aliens in the same sentence. Of all the things Aliens was, 'action packed' is not amongst them. There are three action scenes in the Theatrical cut - Hive, operations, Queen fight - four in the Director's cut - Sentry gun scene, if you could be so kind ... - spread over two hours. It wasn't packed with action. More like liberally sprinkled.
    All I know is that AVP 2 better be packed with lots of action, im talking about like James Cameron Aliens action packed! A movie like this that has Aliens and a Predator can be a 2 hours long film. I don't want a bullshit 90mins flick. Jesus, we are talking about a film that is suppose to bring this franchise back on feet, it's no f__king joke. If it turns out to be 90mins.....It better be more than good!                           "BRING THE PAIN!"                                      ;D  
  17. SiL
    AvP Theatrical was 85 minutes long, with a further ten minutes of credits.  I agree with what Greg said - It can only be as long as it can be. If you make it long for the sake of being long, and the content can't stretch that far, then you're going to get a slow, boring movie with large sections of unnecessary crap (like Kong '05).  Predator couldn't have been any longer. Every minute was used to its full potential; Kept the story going, kept the tension going. Making it three hours long would make it one of the most boring movies ever, because it's exactly the right length as it is.
  18. MoBiUGeArSkIn
    Running time shouldn't matter. There's no point stretching something that doesn't need stretching. If it was 90 minutes of pure quality, I'd take it over 120 minutes that's not quite paced right.
    The length of a movie is nothing...if you want the spectators to care about the characters and the situations depicted, you need one and a half-two hours movie...if all you want is an action movie with no time wasted on characterisation, then 100 minutes is enough...provided the characterisation you do is good enough to make one care about the characters. From the looks of it and given the directors involved, i think this will be a sequel that will try to correct the so-called 'mistakes' of the original, with a cast of unknowns in an arguable setting, reducing the number of Aliens and Predators...which can make it more focused or give away the guys in rubber suits...Given the novice directors, I wouldn't hold my breath...
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