Martin Scorsese’s ‘Silence’ Could Be His Longest Film to Date
Paramount has yet to confirm a release date for Martin Scorsese’s new film, Silence, which may or may not hit theaters during this awards season. The iconic director’s latest is a period drama based on the Shūsaku Endō novel of the same name, and features an excellent cast including Liam Neeson, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver. And although we’ve seen a few stills from the film, the studio has yet to release an official trailer, making Silence and its potential late-2016 arrival all the more intriguing. Adding to that curiosity is a new report suggesting that the forthcoming drama may be Scorsese’s longest film to date.
A few days ago, Variety’s Kris Tapley asked his followers to guess the running time of Silence, and at least one person got it right:
That’s three hours and 15 minutes, by the way. It should be noted that earlier cuts of films like Gangs of New York and The Wolf of Wall Street were each about an hour longer than their eventual theatrical versions; the former ultimately clocked in at two hours, 47 minutes and the latter came in at three hours, setting a record for Scorsese’s longest film.
Silence reportedly has a 195-minute runtime as of now, but that may change in the next couple of months as the director plans to have the film finalized in October. As Scorsese fans know, he doesn’t release director’s cuts, so if that number is reduced by the time Silence hits theaters, don’t expect to see any of those absent minutes show up on the eventual DVD and Blu-ray release.
Paramount has a couple of potential awards contenders lined up for the end of the year, with Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival hitting theaters in November, followed by Denzel Washington’s directorial debut, Fences (based on the acclaimed August Wilson play), in December. It’s unclear how or when the studio could squeeze Silence in, but hopefully we won’t be waiting until next awards season for new Scorsese.