Quentin Tarantino: You Won’t Watch a Four Hour Movie, But You’ll Be Dying to Binge Watch a Four Part Miniseries
Film director Quentin Tarantino held a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. He was asked about the possibility of his movies being re-released as director’s cuts or with added footage. Seeing as all of his movies are the director’s cut, he wasn’t really a fan of that idea.
However, he talked about how he has 90 minutes of footage from Django Unchained that has never been seen. He said that “the idea is to cut together a four-hour version, but not show it like a four-hour movie,” adding that he could “cut it up into one-hour chapters like a four-part miniseries and show it on cable television. People love those!”
With binge watching – for example, watching all episodes of a show on Netflix at one time or in a short period – being such a common thing these days, Tarantino added that people would “be dying to watch all four episodes in one go.”
That’s funny. He’s right.
A four hour movie is pretty much a non-starter. But if you release four one hour episodes, people will talk about how they binge watched them all at once.
Of course, binge watching affords the ability to pause, where going to a movie theater does not (except for set intermissions). People can watch at their own pace.
I think Tarantino’s point is such a great one for us to keep in mind as we approach our online communities, especially if we are about to do something that might overwhelm our community members. This serves as a good reminder to think about how we can break it down and make it more approachable.
