10 Upcoming Trends That Will Change Movies Forever

3. Blockbusters Average Over 2.5 Hours In Length

Though many proclaim that movies on the whole are getting longer, the statistics don't really support that: movies have been getting shorter since the 2000s on the whole, yet given the exorbitant money spent on them, it seems like blockbusters in particular really are getting longer to justify that expense. Take this year's longest blockbuster flicks: Transformers: Age of Extinction ran in at a painful 165 minutes, then there's The Raid 2 (150 minutes), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (142 minutes), Divergent (139 minutes), Noah (138 minutes), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (136 minutes) and so on. Then look at last year's blockbusters: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (161 minutes), The Lone Ranger (149 minutes), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (146 minutes), Man of Steel (143 minutes), and The Great Gatsby (143 minutes). Perhaps the answer is that more blockbusters are simply being made than ever before, or maybe audiences as a whole are just suffering from exhaustion, but examples like this, though only a small snapshot of the blockbuster landscape in fairness, account for a number of the year's biggest movies, which given their box office success (in almost all cases), will likely only encourage studios to continue with their "more, more, more" approach. There's a lot to be said for a blockbuster that gets its point across snappily in 110-130 minutes, whereas much longer, short of a totally gripping story, will just wear viewers out and make them feel 20 years older after leaving the cinema.