You should probably take care of your body’s “business” before seeing Avengers: Endgame in a few months. That’s because the movie is expected to have a rather long run time, currently at about three hours, which the filmmakers say is to give the story’s emotional beats the “real estate” they needs. So, uh, try not to drink too many ICEES in the lobby.
In a new interview with Collider, directors Joe and Anthony Russo explained that the movie’s long running time is due to its “strong emotional moments” that requires “a certain amount of real estate” to tell. In plain English, that means a lot of long, quiet moments of Thor and Tony Stark moping around.
“I think the studio is down with what the best story is,” the Russos said. “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.”
They added:
“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.”
Anthony Russo also revealed that the film has already undergone four test screenings, where “not a single person got up to go to the bathroom.” Eww, but also, awesome?
It was a given that a movie like Avengers: Endgame — the culmination of over ten years of interconnected films — would be very long. Three hours seems about right. At the same time, the film is still undergoing the post-production process, which means there will be cut material that could trim its total length.
But come April 26, if you buy a ticket for Endgame and you find out you’ll be there for pretty much the entire night, you should know exactly what you signed up for.
Avengers: Endgame will be released in theaters on April 26.
