One of the persistent wish lists from fans regarding Marvel’s upcoming Avengers: Endgame has been the demand for a longer running time. Time and again, Avengers: Endgame run time has been reported as being 3 hours, a news which has delighted fans. The movie is 75 days from its release now but its directors Anthony and Joe Russo revealed in an interview that it’s still clocking in at around 3 hours this late in post-production as well. Test screenings for the movie have also begun, with the Russos revealing that in 3 out of 4 screenings, no one got up to visit the bathroom.
We have screened the movie four times for audiences now. For the first three screenings, not a single person got up to go to the bathroom.
Studios are generally hesitant to go for 3-hour movies since it limits the amount of shows a theater can have for a movie, which cuts down on revenue. Not that this hasn’t stopped longer movies like James Cameron’s Avatar and Titanic for making truckloads of money at the box-office but there’s still a precedent for keeping blockbusters around the 2-hour mark. On that front, Joe Russo revealed that Marvel has been quite supportive and are down with whatever works best for the story, regardless of the running time.
I think the studio is down with whatever the best story is. We think the movie is playing well and we’ve had great responses from our test audiences and we’re feeling very good about where it is. We’re still doing work to it. But this is a culmination film of 22 movies, there’s a lot of storytelling to work into it and emotion is an intrinsic part of that to us.
Explaining the 3-hour running time in the interview with Collider’s Steve Weintraub, Joe further elaborated on it being dictated by the need to tell both a “complicated story” and giving strong emotional moments for the characters, which inherently requires some time to stretch out sequences so that they have the desired impact.
When you want to tell a very complicated story and you want strong emotional moments for the characters, it just requires a certain amount of real estate. And this one in particular feels worth the three hours of real estate.
I’m incredibly stoked to see a 3-hour Avengers movie. Given the state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I feel like it has the potential to become a cinematic event akin to The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in scope, scale and impact. What’s also interesting is Joe’s use of a “complicated story” further hinting at the Quantum Realm shenanigans that will play a part in the Avengers avenging Thanos’ snap.
What do you make of this news? Are you as excited as I am? Show your excitement in the comments below.
Avengers: Endgame hits theaters worldwide on April 26, 2019. Be a part of the journey by reading our Road to Avengers: Endgame series. Also check out the interview with Collider below:
