Is it just me or does Hollywood not want their villains to truly shine. It's not necessarily about bad characterization, but that they are not given enough screentime or role in their movies. I am seeing an increasing trend of “low screentime” criticism of villains. Let me go through them one by one.
I first noticed it with Proximus Caesar from Kingdom of Planet of Apes. He doesn’t show up until 1 hour 30 minutes into the movie which has a runtime of 2 hour 25 minutes. I get the point that it makes his entrance all the more satisfying but this makes him feel like a not-so important part of the movie. Even after showing up, he doesn’t do much. He just yells “wonderful day,” makes speeches about evolution and doesn’t get involved until the third act where he is killed by birds.
Next, I observed it with Maxime Le Mal in Despicable Me 4 and the situation is even worse. All he does is get caught by the Anti-Villain League, have some banter with his girlfriend, and turn Gru’s baby into a human cockroach hybrid for a few minutes.
Next up we have the Wild Robot. Now before you get your pitchforks out, let me say that I think this movie is a masterpiece but its villain Vontra doesn’t show up until the third act only to deliver a climax which I will say is visually stunning and emotional but Vontra herself feels like a plot device than a well-developed character.
Now, we enter films of 2025 and the problem still doesn’t end. Let’s start with Dog man. Initially, Petey the cat is the villain of the story but it's clear they are aiming for a redemption arc. Petey tries to resurrect Flippy the Fish but fails. As Petey nears his redemption, Flippy is “somehow” resurrected by factory mishandling and kidnaps Little Petey. Flippy doesn’t have much purpose other than giving Dog Man and Petey a reason to team up and provide a third act.
For Jurassic World: Rebirth, they hyped up the Distortus Rex so much in their marketing campaign as the big bad dinosaur but it doesn’t show up until the end and has like 4 minutes of screentime.
Now why is this happening? There are two recurring issues. First is that the movies feel overcrowded with side-quests and subplots. With DM4, the movie focuses more on the individual side-quests for Gru and his family and the super minions rather than Maxime chasing down Gru. With Jurassic World: Rebirth, the movie is too busy giving so many dinosaurs their own spotlight and it ends up making it feel like a video game where each dinosaur is its own level and the D-Rex is the final boss. The second common issue is that the villains aren’t originally developed from the beginning. In Wild Robot, Vontra isn’t even mentioned before she shows up. In Dog Man, there are overt hints about Flippy’s resurrection but it feels pretty forced. It's similar to how Megamind tried to turn Tighten into a hero to fight him and it ends up being a failed experiment but Tighten was established and developed as a character instead of being shoehorned in at the last moment.
I am not saying a villain with low screentime is inherently bad. There are a lot of great villains out there even if their presence is limited. Superfly from TMNT: Mutant Mayhem is a great example. I am also not saying it's a problem with every Hollywood villain now but the trend is becoming noticeable. A lot of villains are written as final bosses instead of core narrative drivers.
But these are just my opinions. What do you guys think? Do you think the screentime they are given was enough or do you agree with me?