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In a recent interview with the folks at Scifi Wire, Watchmen director Zack Snyder and his wife, producer Deborah Snyder talked about the film’s run time. And to the potential dismay of some fans, Snyder admitted that while the final runtime is not set, the film is getting shorter. ”We’re getting really close,” producer Deborah Snyder said in a telephone interview on Nov. 18. “We’re at two hours and 35 minutes.”

Director Zack Snyder added: “The movie’s pretty long … compared to 300, which was an hour and 58 minutes. The director’s cut [of Watchmen] is about three hours and 10 minutes long. It has even more than the theatrical version as far as the detail that gets even closer to the graphic novel.”

Snyder also talked more about “Tales of the Black Freighter,” which is still set to be a DVD extra. From where I am sitting, the length of Watchmen won’t be as important as the way the story flows. From what I’ve heard though, there is no drag in its two and a half hour plus runtime, so keeping it long shouldn’t be a problem. What fans will be eyeing is whether or not iconic moments from the book are missing — that could spell trouble. What fans should understand though is that a two hour and 45 minute movie is a tough sell for most moviegoers. As well, a movie that long will see less rotation on a given day in a theater, which could negatively impact the box office. So in a sense, it would be a smart move, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Do you care that Watchmen is being cut down a little bit?