An intermission in the middle of Killers of the Flower Moon? Rooms defy the ban

A handful of theaters in the world are not playing the game of Martin Scorsese’s new epic film, even though they do not have the right to do so.

Yes, 206 minutes is a long time. Almost 4 hours in the Osages, it’s even too much for certain cinemas, which have chosen to cut Killers of the Flower Moon in two parts, with an intermission lasting from 6 to 15 minutes.

As of Friday morning, two European cinema chains and an independent cinema in Amsterdam sold tickets for screenings of Killers of the Flower Moon with integrated pause. A spokesperson for UCI Cinemas, an exhibitor chain with operations in Germany, Italy, Portugal and Brazil, confirmed that all of its 80 cinemas had included a six-minute intermission near the middle of the film. Similarly, The Vue, a UK-based cinema chain, and an Amsterdam cinema called The Movies Haarlemmerdijk also offer screenings with a break, according to their websites. In the USA, The Lyric, a cinema in Fort Collins, Colorado, screened this week Killers of the Flower Moon with the same cutting.

Sacrilege! Because Martin Scorsese thought of his film as a long-term epic. And there’s no question of taking a break halfway through. Paramount, the film’s distributor, and Apple Original Films, its producer, contacted the cinemas in question, who did not have the right to make these intermissions, violating their operating contract. “I understand that someone is screening the film with an incorrect intermission. That’s a violation, and I’m going to see it“, Thelma Schoonmaker, the film’s editor and longtime Scorsese collaborator, told The Standard magazine (via Variety).

Martin Scorsese has not yet reacted, but he still defends the long duration of Killers of the Flower Moon in an interview with the Hindustan Times, saying: “People say 3 hours is a long time. But really, you can sit in front of the TV and watch something for 5 hours straight, right?”

Scorsese doesn’t want to hear complaints about Killers of the Flower Moon’s length