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In hindsight, allowing the directors to have it their own way enabled the success of films like Titanic and Saving Private Ryan. But it can also earn Beloved the nickname "Belabored" and make Casino seem a gamble. More important, a three-hour running length can result in loss of revenue to the tune of millions of dollars, since a film may get one less screening per theater per day than its shorter competitors. "There are exceptions where you can't cut and you shouldn't cut, but if a studio were to vote on how long a movie would be, most of the time they'd vote that it be shorter," says Mitch Goldman, head of distribution for New Line Cinema. "Normal showtimes for movie theaters are 7 and 9, and anything longer than two hours creates a dynamic for a theater owner where they may have one show a night. We just rereleased Gone With the Wind, and no one could argue that it should be cut--but you have to schedule your day around the movie, and that's not how people run their lives."

The paradox is that while studios are far from powerless, they rarely choose to enforce that power. Often, even when a studio grants a director final cut, it will retain control over the running time (Twentieth Century Fox had the right to limit the length of Titanic; the studio chose not to). But having that right and enforcing it are two separate issues. If the studio asserts itself and cuts the film, it risks alienating a director of some stature and an onslaught of bad press. John Sloss, an entertainment attorney who has executive-produced such films as Velvet Goldmine and 54, explains: "If the director exceeds the bounds of the contract, his representatives and the participants in the film may support the director. If the studio enforces the contract, it could have a public-relations nightmare on its hands.... I think in the end, it's the director who has marginally more power than the studio."

That was certainly the case with Quentin Tarantino and Jackie Brown. While neither Tarantino nor Miramax will comment, a source who was privy to the ensuing conversations says the director was determined that the film run at 2 hours and 40 minutes, despite Miramax's protests: "There was a great movie in there, but I guarantee you [the length] hurt the movie in the neighborhood of a 40 percent return in gross. You had to take out all the redundant details."

Ideally, the studio and director have nailed down the details before filming begins. New Line production's president and COO, Michael De Luca, has given Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson final cut on his next film, Magnolia; he says that it is vital to have as many meetings as possible before the deal with the filmmaker is even signed. "It's something in general we'd rather not do, but after Boogie Nights it became part of Paul's deal," De Luca says. "But Paul and I are so close it's a trust issue." (De Luca also supported the two and a half hour running time of Boogie Nights and says he only regrets that the movie wasn't longer "with a disco intermission.")


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