I think Robert McKee said, “Your story is as long as it needs to be, and then it ends.” Hopefully (for a feature), this is between 90 and 110 pages. I aim for 100 even. Some people will quibble with that number. They’re wrong.
I’ve read dozens of scripts and never once said, “If only this script were fifteen pages longer, I could recommend it.” Once you hit 90 pages, you’ve proven that your script has enough material to make a feature. Beyond that, you’re just adding days to the shooting schedule.
From a reader’s perspective, 120 pages looks intimidating. It’s thicker and heavier than the last script they read (and the last script they read was probably a heaping pile of garbage). Since most scripts are shorter, it also suggests that you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s two strikes against you before the reader even gets past the title page.
Think about it this way. 120 is 33% more than 90. In minutes, that’s 2 hours versus 1 ½ hours. A reader could already be at happy hour if it weren’t for your extra 30 pages.
All of this may sound arbitrary, but it actually helps your writing. Forcing yourself to choose the most important scenes, the best lines, the critical story beats will give you a tighter, better script. All those decisions you vacillate about in your rough draft will be crystal clear when you force yourself to make cuts. Do your characters really need to take that fifth trip to White Castle?
I’ve included a sample scene from my latest script here so you can see what it looks like before and after I trimmed the fat.
(To give you a visual, if this post were 33% shorter, it would end here.)
What if you are literally writing an epic? Fine. Go for it. But a professor of mine pointed out that you could cut 30 minutes from each Lord of the Rings movie and the ending would still be the same. (Don’t even get me started on The Hobbit.)
If you follow McKee’s story outlines and Snyder’s beat sheet, you’ll find that your script tends to fall in that 90-110 page range pretty easily. That’s what 100 years of filmmaking has taught us. I actually prefer if my rough drafts run 120-130 pages because I know I have more than enough material to work with. But when I trim the fat, that’s when I know I’ve got something worthwhile.
Vargoing 