Moviegoers may need an intermission

The Future. With movies getting increasingly longer, the debate over including intermissions (so people can go to the bathroom and stretch their legs) has entered the cultural conversation. Ultimately, it continues to be at the discretion of filmmakers and studios… but for those who simply can’t hold it, apps like RunPee may help plan the perfect time to step out without missing key scenes that would ruin the experience.

Butt endurance
In the past year, Oppenheimer, Killers of the Flower Moon, Babylon, Avatar: The Way of Water, and even Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour clocked in at over three hours.

• KOTFM was especially long at three hours and 26 minutes, which prompted some theaters in the US and UK to add ten-minute intermissions.
• That was quickly quashed by Apple and Paramount because theaters aren’t allowed to make any alterations to movies (as part of exhibition deals) — which include intermissions.
• But not every country has those rules, with Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Iceland, and India all regularly having intermissions.

India, which often produces very long movies, makes creative use of intermissions by adding cliffhangers before them. Last year’s three-hour-and-seven-minute RRR concluded a major action scene by flashing “inteRRRval” across the screen.

While many American filmmakers would likely rather have audiences watch their movies in one sitting (Martin Scorsese said if you can binge-watch shows, you can sit through long movies), some have embraced the intermission. Quentin Tarantino’s roadshow version of his 2015 epic, The Hateful Eight (three hours, seven minutes), had an intermission to harken back to the Golden Age of cinema.

So, your bladder may be at the mercy of creative expression.