Martin Scorsese did not include an intermission in his 206-minute epic, “Killers of the Flower Moon.” But that hasn’t stopped a handful of movie theaters around the world from inserting one themselves, with intervals ranging from between six minutes and 15 minutes.
By Friday morning, two European cinema chains and one independent theater located in Amsterdam began offering tickets for screenings of “Killers of the Flower Moon” that included a built-in break. A spokesperson from UCI Cinemas, an exhibition chain with theaters in Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Brazil, confirmed that almost all of its nearly 80 theaters had implemented a “six-minute interval” inserted towards the middle of the film. However, Imax screens in Porta di Roma, Orio, and Campi Bisenzio were exceptions to this practice.
The Vue, a U.K.-based theater chain, and an Amsterdam cinema called The Movies Haarlemmerdijk also were offering showings with a break, according to their websites.
Domestically, The Lyric, a theater in Fort Collins, Colo., showed the historical drama with an intermission until Oct. 26. However, they did away with the intermission after getting in trouble with Paramount, the film’s distributor, and Apple Original Films, its producer. The companies have been contacting theaters that have violated their contract by splitting up the film and telling them to show “Killers of the Flower Moon” as intended, according to an individual with knowledge of the situation.
To be clear, only a smattering of venues out of the roughly 10,000 globally that are screening “Killers of the Flower Moon” have included an intermission, but it hasn’t gone unnoticed. Thelma Schoonmaker, the editor of the film and longtime collaborator with Scorsese, told The Standard, “I understand that somebody’s running it with an intermission which is not right. That’s a violation so I have to find out about it.”
While Martin Scorsese has not directly addressed the inclusion of an intermission (or the absence thereof) in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” he has defended the film’s lengthy runtime in an interview with the Hindustan Times. Scorsese stated, “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours.” Scorsese did not include
Some industry analysts share Scorsese’s perspective. Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at Boxoffice Pro, remarked, “If Scorsese didn’t intend for there to be an intermission, I think that should be at least the primary way people can see it. That being said, it was a long movie. And I think if there is enough demand out there, and especially if it means a difference in helping someone make the decision to go and buy a ticket, rather than not go see the movie, then maybe there’s an economical and practical argument for at least a limited option.”