The Dark Knight Rises is How Long?

I told you guys yesterday about the cool poster you can get by attending the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises at your local IMAX theater at 12:01AM, July 20.

Now we know just how long you’ll have to sit in your theater chair. 164 minutes, 27 seconds. That translates to 2 hours, 44 minutes, and 27 seconds. That’s the official runtime for the film, which is 12 minutes longer than The Dark Knight and 24 minutes longer than Batman Begins. You’re going to need the small drink and the large popcorn. The good news is that about 100 minutes of the film is supposed to be close-quarters combat, chase sequences, aerial battles, street warfare, and other action. So, we should all be entertained.

The Dark Knight Rises will be the longest film to be presented in IMAX. I’m a big fan of the IMAX format because of its superb visual clarity. The 70-millimeter frame size of IMAX prints dwarfs standard 35-millimeter prints. No, seriously. Individual IMAX frames are about four times the size of standard film.

IMAX on bottom, 35mm on top

A single IMAX frame is 4X larger than 35mm  

It’s no wonder IMAX films look so good and are the preferred format for discerning cinephiles everywhere. Combine the visual presentation with a stellar sound system, and you have a amazing theatrical experience. Seriously, see every film in IMAX if you can. It's worth the premium admission price.

The major drawbacks in terms of presentation for IMAX films are the enormous sizes and weights of the assembled film reels. Here’s a great video from the folks at the Liberty Science Center IMAX theater showing their IMAX projector and discussing preparations for showing The Dark Knight Rises.

The bullet point version is:

• The film will arrive on 50 separate film reels
• It will require 12+ hours to assemble them onto a single reel
• The final master reel will weigh 600 pounds
• It will take 6+ hours to load the master into the IMAX projector

Holy smokes! The good news is that all that hard work will be worth it. Can’t wait to see it in action.

Think you can wait until July 20 to see this beast in action? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter!