Transformers 2 Hours In Length

Rotten Tomatoes had a brief interview with TF producer Tom DeSanto who revealed that the final cut of the movie will be about 2 hours long, has 20 set pieces (which Shia previously revealed), and has scored higher with test audiences then any previous Bay movie.

Just to brag, I called that movie length. Shia had said it was going to be 2.5 hours long but that length would have prevented at least one showing of the film per theatre playing in. So lets say a theatre typically plays a 2 hour film about 6 times a day per screen, the extra 30 minutes would reduce that number to 5 per day. With the movie probably going to about 3000 screens in just the US, thats 3000 less plays, which is 3000 x total seats in each screening x $cost per seat, not potentially sold each day. For a $150 million dollar movie with goal to become a franchise and what will probably be an additional $50 million spent on marketing....well that per screen hit is to high a cost.

I just hope they release a "director's cut" of the film on DVD, preferably not a year later as kind of sick of there being multiple editions of the same movie on DVD. Its was nice at first because market was new and the studios where learning. Now they know, now they can plan, so now its just insulting.

From the article:

"[It tested] higher than any other of Michael [Bay]'s movies," said DeSanto. "It's good, everybody's excited. It's a great time right now because in a summer of sequels, we're going to be bringing something new to the table."

Nobody said they had to change the ending, which is good. "It's one ending. It's one story. It's a beginning, middle and end. The ending works. It's great too because yeah, there's going to be giant robots but there's romance in there and Shia has a real emotional storyline that at the end, you're really rooting for him."

DeSanto confirmed star LaBeouf's estimate that the film had 20 set pieces. "I would say he's probably right on target. You know when you go to Six Flags and there's the new roller coaster that outdoes every other roller coaster? That's going to be 'Transformers.' We're doing things, and the fun this is it hasn't been done before. It's all new stuff."

The running time even came in shorter than previous estimates. "The picture was just about two [hours]."