Avengers: Endgame Is Still 3 Hours Long at Current Runtime

We knew it was going to be a long one, and after months of hearing that Marvel’s upcoming box office plunderer, Avengers: Endgame, has been clocking in at the three-hour mark throughout the editing process …it’s still at the three-hour mark.

Directors Joe and Anthony Russo confirmed the current runtime in a new interview with Collider, where they assured everyone that Disney isn’t too fussed if the climax of the MCU’s broader story turns into the most butt-numbiest of the franchise to date. This has apparently been the feeling in the Endgame test screenings, too, with audiences giving the pair great feedback so far.

“I think the studio is down with what the best story is,” said Joe Russo. “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. 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.”

Indeed, the directors are starting to think that the follow up to Infinity War might end up being so compelling, you may not be able to take your eyes off it.

“We have screened the movie four times for audiences now,” Anthony Russo revealed. “For the first three screenings, not a single person got up to go to the bathroom.”

The film will finally be released on April 26, but we’re starting to get the feeling that the Russos will still be fiddling with the final edit right down to the wire. Was it da Vinci who said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned?”