‘Killers Of The Flower Moon’ Intermission Imposed By Handful Of Theaters Spurs Intervention

A handful of theaters across the globe have imposed their own intermission on Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, Deadline has confirmed, leading to intervention on the part of the Apple pic’s primarily theatrical distributor, Paramount, and international partners.

While intermissions were reportedly put in place at one Colorado theater and in numerous international territories, given the Oklahoma-set crime epic’s runtime of three hours and 26 minutes, they comprise a violation of the domestic licensing agreement for the project, Deadline hears, and have thus been swiftly shut down. But not before drawing the attention of Thelma Schoonmaker, the three-time Oscar-winning editor who has cut pictures for Scorsese since the 1960s. “I understand that somebody’s running it with an intermission which is not right,” Schoonmaker told The Standard. “That’s a violation so I have to find out about it.”

Scorsese himself previously defended Killers‘ runtime in his own interview with the Hindustan Times. Said the filmmaker, “People say it’s three hours, but come on, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for five hours. Also, there are many people who watch theatre for three and a half hours. There are real actors on stage — you can’t get up and walk around. You give it that respect; give cinema some respect.”

Rolled out of late to around 10,000 theaters in total, Killers of the Flower Moon adapts the same-name work of non-fiction from David Grann. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone star in the pic chronicling the furtive yet systematic murder of the Osage people in the 1920s following the discovery of oil on their land. The awards contender hit theaters October 20th and will be debuting on Apple TV+ at a date that has not yet been disclosed.