This morning I sent Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells on a bit of a wild goose chase. I had mentioned there was this never-ending rumour that Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” was 3 hours long and that I didn’t believe it.
Wells went into investigative mode and, first of all, managed to get “West Side Story” lead actress Rachel Zegler to tweet back “our movie is not 3 hours long.”
Then, Wells found that West Side Story’s Wikipedia page links to New Zealand’s United Cinemas chain and a title card that says it runs 156 minutes. That would make Spielberg’s version three minutes longer than the 1961 original.
This means … “Licorice Pizza” 133 minutes, “Nightmare Alley” 139 minutes, “Don’t Look Up” 145 Minutes and “West Side Story” 156 minutes. That’s 10 hours in a movie theatre this holiday season.