While it's not 100% confirmed quite yet,
Avengers: Endgame will more than likely have a three-hour runtime. That makes it the longest theatrical cut of any superhero movie, and by far the longest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date.
Considering the fact that it's being billed as a conclusion to over a decade's worth of stories, that's no great surprise, and now directors Joe and Anthony Russo and writers Stephen Markus and Christopher McFeely have weighed in on why the feel the runtime is justified.
"Joe and I like very propulsive storytelling," Anthony explains.
"We like to keep it tight and focused, and to give the audience a thrill ride. But this movie… you know, no one’s been pushing us to cut the film. We usually are; we’re primarily pushing ourselves. The number of characters, the scope of the story, the fact that it was a conclusion. It’s just that everything lined up [so] that it was going to be a difficult story to tell. Meaning that it would require a lot of screen time to tell it properly."
Markus, meanwhile, adds that even with a longer runtime than we're used to for the genre, the story definitely doesn't drag (to be fair,
Avengers: Infinity War flew by at over two hours, forty).
"It always felt like this was not a movie that you should cut stuff out of for efficiency," the writer reveals.
"I don’t think there’s anybody there who’s like, ‘OK, I’ve got to get out of there in 85 minutes, I want a nice, quick wrap-up.’ You’ve earned a long, satisfying, conclusion to the story you tell. So I don’t think there was anybody who wanted to trade it out for a speedy box-office. Even watching it, it doesn’t feel like a slog."
To counter the negative impact a three-hour runtime has in terms of box office performance, Disney is starting evening screenings half an hour earlier and making sure that the movie plays on more screens in a single theater. As a result,
Avengers: Endgame actually stands to make more in the long-run!
Are you excited for a super-sized
Avengers movie later this month? Let us know below.
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