Vince Vaughn works in the North Pole’s “Naughty or Nice” department in the misbegotten “Fred Claus,” arriving Friday at a theater near you. But it’s Warners publicists who are checking it twice — the film’s running time, that is. Warners’ New York office sent out an e-mail listing a 107 minute running time, a figure that was repeated verbally at a press screening on Monday. But we had no sooner rushed back to the office than we noticed (highly negative) reviews in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter listing it at 115 minutes. When asked, a Warners flack claimed their projectionist had clocked “Fred Claus” at 107 minutes, including end credits. But when we pressed the flack about the discrepency, he learned from his colleagues on the Left Coast that their projectionist had clocked it at 115 minutes, and that’s the figure that was given out to critics in L.A. (Variety claims its critics verify the running time of every film they review by timing it themselves) While I’m not claiming that’s what happened here, in my experience it’s not unusual for publicists at virtually every studio to lowball running times of longish flicks. Most often, they leave off the end credits, which can run as long as 10 to 15 minutes for some effects-heavy flicks. This “Fred Claus” still features Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey, who plays an efficiency expert with a superhero fetish. As you can see, Spacey has apparently given up his Bobby Darin impressions in favor of Jack Benny. Well!

Update: Warners claims “final confirmation” of the 107 minute runtime.