How do I sqaure this circle with that the biggest films in the last two decades have been Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water, and Avatar: Fire and Ash

2h 42m, 3 hours 12 minutes, and 3 hours 15 minutes.

All 3 are WAY too long and Way of Water in particular felt like it was 4+ hours subjectively.

Yet, they're literally the biggest films EVER by gross.

So seems the general public has longer attention spans than film students. This isn't the first time that lay people are objectively better/smarter than so-called "professionals" in a field.