According to Allocine, as translated by our pals at ThePlaylist, the running time of Wolf of Wall Street has ballooned to two hours and 59 minutes, which would make it Martin Scorsese’s longest film to date. Wolf was originally scheduled for a November 15th release, but had to be pushed to Christmas Day when it wasn’t finished in time. Opening two weeks after The Hobbit, my guess is Scorsese is trying to compete with Peter Jackson, and we only get to see the actual wolf at the very end.
The folks over at Allocine are reporting that according to France distributor Metropolitan Filmexport, “The Wolf Of Wall Street” now clocks in at 2 hour and 59 minutes (which we can only surmise was done to get under a 3 hour-limit). This would make the movie Scorsese’s longest feature to date, besting the 2 hour and 50 minute “The Aviator” and 2 hour and 58 minute “Casino.”
Casino is one of Scorsese’s best, so there’s no reason to pre-judge Wolf of Wall Street on length alone. It’s more about girth than length anyway, I always say. I’m more concerned with the fact that the subject of the film is a raging asshole, and that the trailers all seem to treat Jonah Hill’s character as if he’s delivering this huge punchline, when he’s really just kind of saying the obvious thing. If you want saying the obvious thing to be funny, you have to get a fat black guy and have him say it really loud.
I just hope those extra 15 minutes are all Matthew McConaughey.