I agree, after LoTR, I've a strick movie length rule. I want my films as near 120 minutes as possible. I sat through Lotr in the theater out of respect for the friends I saw the film with. But I was so ready to walk out. The Fellowship is my favorite film of the trilogy.
"Not 'a child at heart,' just childish." Penbot 2004
Yeah... anything over 2 1/2 hours is pushing it to the limit. heck, the only reason RotK pulled it off was the eye candy and the wonderfully detailed battle sequences. You can waste a lot of time with good battle sequences.
Now, if Ray took some liberties and changed the story to make Ray Charles some sweet-ass blind kung-fu master laying the smaketh down on bigots... then yeah, 3 hours sounds about right.
Unfortunately, I don't think that is what they have in mind.