AMC Extends Running Time Of ‘Mad Men’, Oh My Draper.

It feels like Mad Men has been off the air for fucking ever, thanks to arguments and slap-fights and contractual wrangling between series creator Matthew Weiner and AMC. The good news is that when the son of a bitch returns, it’ll be at a slightly extended running time.

Awesome.

Slashfilm:

Back when showrunner  Matthew Weiner  and AMC were engaged in a nasty public negotiation about the fate of the series, one of the major sticking points was AMC’s insistence that Weiner cut the episodes’ running time by two minutes in order to give more time to commercials. Weiner and AMC eventually reached a  compromise, settling upon usual 47-minute run time for the Season 5 premiere and finale and a 45-minute run time for the other 11 episodes of the season. In addition, Weiner would have the option of producing 47-minute extended cuts for VOD and DVD.

However, Weiner announced Friday that the network had since changed its mind and agreed to a running time of 47:05 for all episodes. “I don’t know how they managed to make that work out,” said Weiner. “It was a lot of worry. I’m so thrilled.”

The news is somewhat surprising, given the network’s well-documented  budget  woes, but welcome nonetheless. Although two minutes per episode seems like a small sacrifice, a show as carefully constructed as  Mad Men  could suffer in subtle ways from having to shave off that time. And over the course of 11 episodes, those two minutes would’ve add up to 22 minutes for the season – or almost half an episode.

Very fucking awesome. Any time a creator gets the man  to budget and allows him to more closely chase his dream I’m pretty stoked. Provided, you know, that I don’t think the creator is a douche or anything.