Runtimes have become a big deal in recent years, both for movies and many of our favourite TV shows on streaming. Often, it comes down to fans simply wanting more, but Marvel Studios came under fire last year when Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder were each only around 2 hours long.
The argument was made that both blockbusters would have greatly benefitted from an extra twenty or thirty minutes. The prevailing opinion online, meanwhile, is that the decision to tighten up their runtimes was made in response to critics who slated Eternals for being "overlong" at 156 minutes.
It may well have been a coincidence, but what we do know is that The Marvels will be Marvel Studios' shortest movie yet at just 105 minutes. The Incredible Hulk and Thor: The Dark World (which clocked in at 108 minutes) proved a story can be told within those confines, though neither received glowing reviews.
Talking to Digital Spy, The Marvels director Nia DaCosta defended the decision to make the Captain Marvel sequel so surprisingly short.
"I really wanted it to be under two hours," the filmmaker confirms. "I always think about the runtime actually, when I go into a film. I just feel like there's no need to have it long if you don't need to, because 1 hour 45 minutes is pretty average for a movie, so we were all really excited."
"I just think you do what's right for the movie. I didn't even know about this runtime thing until I think it was reported on. You have to do what's right for the movie."
It does feel like much ado about nothing. Still, squeezing the stories of Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Photon into one movie, while also bringing back Nick Fury and introducing a new Kree villain with possible ties to the Multiverse, seems mighty ambitious...
In The Marvels, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree and taken revenge on the Supreme Intelligence. But unintended consequences see Carol shouldering the burden of a destabilized universe.
When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole linked to a Kree revolutionary, her powers become entangled with that of Jersey City super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, now S.A.B.E.R. astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and learn to work in concert to save the universe as "The Marvels."
The movie stars Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Samuel L. Jackson, Zawe Ashton and Park Seo-joon.
The Marvels is currently set to arrive in theaters on November 10.