In an interview with Collider, Joe and Anthony Russo revealed they are currently editing the project down to be in line with the runtimes of the other films, but admitted they weren’t too worried about it, revealing that Disney have given them the green light to hit the three-hour mark, if necessary.
“Right now, 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,” Joe said. “We’re still doing work to it. We’re not done with it. Again, this is a culmination film of 22 movies, it’s a lot of storytelling to work into it. Emotion is an intrinsic part of that to us. When you have to tell a really complicated story and you want strong emotional moments with the characters, it just requires a certain amount of real estate. This one, in particular, feels like three hours worth of real estate.”
The run time isn’t really all that much of a surprise, considering Infinity War clocked in at two hours and forty minutes, though audiences didn’t seem to mind (I know I didn’t) and the film went on to take over $2.048 billion at the worldwide box office. Apparently audiences don’t mind the extended run time for Endgame either, as the Russos said audiences at test screenings didn’t get up the first three times they showed the movie.
Avengers: Endgame is set to hit UK cinemas April 25th and will be released in the US the following day. How do you feel about a 3 hour movie? Happy? Or would you prefer a “director’s cut” Blu Ray?